Issues
3.1. MANAGEMENT AND TECHNOLOGICAL LIFE CYCLE tions should be created. How a company can increase its ability to change and how managers are able to manage change, especially technological change, are very important for creating these condi- tions. The impact of technological change in an organization is usually very broad, complex, and integrative. The more companies are able to cope with this change, the less any inhibiting factors play a role in the process.
The life cycle concept can be useful in explaining tech- nological change. A better understanding of the characteristics of the technology life cycle and of the relation of management systems to different life cycle phases will help to identify the managerial and organizational conditions necessary to manage tech- nological change.
Change can be defined as the introduction or adoption of new conditions or relations within or without an organization. Tech- nological change occurs when a new technology is adopted by a com- pany or when existing technology is improved or modified.
Changes can be radical (revolutionary) or evolutionary.
Revolutionary changes occur when basic innovations are introduced;
evolutionary changes take place when a technology develops in the course of its exploitation. From this point of view, changes and transition periods between different life cycle phases are evolu- tionary changes. Technological changes correspond to management and organizational changes. This is of course known to management scientists, but regularities of this correspondence have not yet been deeply studied. How does management change when technology changes, to what extent are changing management features related to different phases of the technological life cycle, and how can this be used as a management tool? These are some of the ques- tions that have not yet been fully answered.
Management and its changes are paramount in this era of technology globalization and internationalization (Razvigorova, 1986). Management can be considered one of the critical success factors in current technological development. Despite protective national strategies and trade restrictions, technologies are today more easily available and more rapidly diffused than two or
three decades ago. This is due to rapid scientific diffusion, increased technical collaboration, and new information tech- nologies. The success of today's companies depends to a great extent on the ability of their management systems to select the winning technology at the appropriate time and to create or- ganizational conditions appropriate for its development and dif- fusion. Many management studies have concentrated on the inter- relations among technology, organization and management.
The phases of the early innovation process (i.e., the period in which innovation appears) and the internal laws of innovation development have been studied by Schumpeter, 1939; Abernathy/Ut- terback, 1975; Mensch, 1979; Marchetti, 1981; Yakovitz, 1984.
Innovations usually appear in groups, with a lag between the time of their appearance and that of their implementation (Marchetti,
1981). Some researchers even assume that the discoveries or inventions which develop into basic innovations follow the prin- ciple, "first appeared, first served" (Mensch, 1979). Attempts have been made to answer the question to what extent the technol- ogy determines the management system and, if this is so, what the regularities are. The relations between structure and technology have been very carefully investigated as well (Woodward, 1958;
Walker, 1962; Pugh/Hickson/Hennings, 1969). Their results, how- ever, were very contradictory. At first, a direct relationship between technologies and organizational structures appeared to exist. Later studies proved that this relationship is only in- direct and is due to a number of other factors which are less determined by specific technological features. Comparing the structure of companies from one branch (Goncharov/Vasko, 1983), researchers have proven that similar or analogous structures are nevertheless successful (in terms of productivity and efficiency in technology development) to varying degrees.
The organizational structures and forms used by companies to carry out innovation activities to channel a rapid implementation of technologies, or to transfer and develop new technologies have been attracting the attention of managers and researchers for many years. An intensive study of contemporary forms, such as small industries, technological centers, or venture capital divi- sions, also points to this general interest. To what extent the organization, due to its structural type and flexibility, can cope with changing conditions of technological process and enhance efficiency has not yet been answered. There are indications
which show that the organizational and hierarchical structures in current business practice can hardly fulfil contemporary tech- nological requirements. The way to solving organizational pro- blems and creating structures to promote innovation is probably beyond existing traditions and conventional approaches (Miles/- Snow, 1986).
Empirically, it has been proven that large companies (Uhl- mann, 1977) usually produce basic innovations and that improve-
ments and imitations are due to the activities of smaller com- panies. In real life, while there are many practical examples of very innovative large companies, there are also examples of large companies which are extremely inflexible and vice versa.
The kinetics of internal conflicts among executives and the influence of leadership style on technology management have proved that dynamic entrepreneurs are risk-takers, consolidators, gen- eralists, risk-adviser controllers or excellent marketing experts who can best serve a company in different situations and phases of technological development.
An accelerating rate of social, political and economic fac- tors are pressuring companies in their technological choices.
Faced by the discontinuity of change, it is difficult for many or- ganizations to predict future developments in their environment.
The integrative decisions within the company must be able to cope with the integrative impact of external factors. This usually calls for significant collaboration between marketing, production and R&D people and demands that today's manager be a proficient synthesist (Mensch, 1985).
One of the reasons for the greatly varied results of man- agement studies is probably that technology management is usually an object of different concepts. Moreover, it is also usually the subject of separate organizational functions. The problems of managing technology are split between science and its management, RLD (innovation concepts), and production management. In fact, technology management makes it possible to examine and manage the entire technology life existence, from the idea generation to its eventual replacement by a new and more competitive technology.
The introduction of the life cycle concept also makes it possible to introduce the concept of technology management.
TECHNOLOGY DYNAMICS
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THE LIFE CYCLE CONCEPTThe study's overall concept is that the development of every technology is a cyclical phenomenon. Technological cycles are regarded as non-deterministic systems driven by causes of a cum- ulative nature (Sahal, 1981) and can be expressed by cumulative adoption curves, known aa S-shaped or logistic curves. Based on the metaphor of biological evolution, the life cycle concept is a n economic theory that recognizes similar stages in the evolution of product technologies, industries, organizations, etc. For the purposes of our study, three types of life cycles are relevant:
technology, product, and industry life cycles.
The relation between different cycles has been the subject of several studies (Abernathy/Utterback, 1975; Ayres, 1987), result- ing in the inter-relations between product and process life cycles as well as organizational and technological life cycles. The
technological life cycle is of greatest importance t o this inves- tigation. It begins with a technology breakthrough and follows the life cycle of a given technology until it is replaced by a new and better one. The technology life cycle can be investigated on three different levels: world, country, and company (See Figure 1).
Figure 1.
Technology can have a very broad meaning. For the purpose of this study, technology is regarded as a united set of methods, skills, knowledge, tools, and equipment to produce different goods, services or information. Technologies are recognized as existing in almost all spheres: social, management, marketing, etc., as well as production (hard-, soft- and orgware). Within the production sphere, different types of technologies can be recognized.
Production technologies can be divided into process (generic) and product technologies. For technological development, both are equally important. Process or generic technologies produce completely new products or change, improve or more efficiently produce existing products. New products can also be produced through new combinations of already existing process technologies
(See Figure 2).