Managing Technology in Society The Approach of Constructive Technology Assessment

A fateful conceptual gap separates the policy makers and managers charged with promoting technology, and the risk and technology assessors responsible for controlling it. This hampers the effective use of many new technologies, and prevents the development of others. The strategy of constructive technology assessment (CTA) addresses this gap through facilitating societal learning processes, and proposing a shared responsibility for the promotion and control of new technologies. Combining analysis of both cases and concepts, Managing Technology in Society confronts the underdevelopment of innovative potential for achieving goals of wealth, sustainability and safety. Factors that block change, as well as conditions for successful learning are identified in a wide-ranging selection of cases that encompass biotechnology, clean technologies, information and medical technologies. The contributors build on the convergence of recent theories on technical change within economics, sociology and the history of technology, to offer suggestions for CTA action, and so create a new paradigm of managing technology in society.