Beyond Innovation ― Technology, Institution and Change As Categories for Social Analysis

Today's western society is obsessed with change, and more specifically technological change. Innovation is a buzzword in a number of policy areas including research policy, economic policy, and environmental policy. Beyond Innovation counter weighs this present innovation monomania by broadening our thinking about technological and institutional change. It is done by a multidisciplinary review of the most common ideas about the dynamics between technology and institutions. This book thus balances between being on one hand an introduction for students interested in different views and perspectives on technological and institutional change and, on the other, an instrument for cross-fertilization between different strands of thought and modes of analyses.

Thomas Kaiserfeld is Professor of History of Ideas and Sciences at Lund University, Sweden. He has been awarded the Robinson Prize by the Society for the History of Technology and the Rausing Prize by Lund University.