ABSTRACT
Research on socio-technical change is fundamentally research on temporal processes. It can take, and has taken, place in a wide range of focal areas and on very different time scales of inquiry. Traditionally this condition has been deemed less consequential than the problems in comparing development projects in different fi elds, eras, fi rms, et cetera, and the use of altogether different frameworks, methods of inquiry, and kinds of data (Fagerberg et al. 2005; Freeman 1994; Stewart and Williams 2005). The maturing of the “new sociology of technology” has, however, led us to notice that while, for instance, data and the theory used do have signifi cant impact on what kind of fi ndings arise, the research practice is just as importantly affected by seemingly less lofty questions of how research is framed temporally and spatially. When, for instance, design, development, marketing, implementation, and appropriation of technology are studied separately, the other sites and times in the shaping technology become assumed rather than studied in relation to the topic at hand. As a consequence, contradictory fi ndings about technology and its consequences continue to live in different discourses centered on a particular type of study-say, “implementation studies,” “impact studies,” or “design studies” (Williams et al. 2005; Pollock and Williams 2008). When one actually goes beyond a single focal area and grain size of analysis, as we do in the present volume, the effects of differently framed “snapshots” of technological change become striking.
