The Transformative Capacity of New Technologies: How Innovations Affect Sectoral Change: Conceptual Considerations

Following up on recent debates about sectoral systems of innovation and production, the paper introduces a heuristic framework for analyzing and explaining distinct patterns of technology-based sectoral change. The concept is based on two interrelated influencing factors. The first is the sectoral-specific transformative capacity of new technologies themselves, that is, their substantial or incremental impact on socioeconomic and institutional change in a given sectoral system. The second is the sectoral adaptability of socioeconomic structures, institutions, and actors confronted with the opportunities presented by new technologies. The first factor – the sectoral transformative capacity of new technologies – enables us to identify the technology-driven pressure to change and adjust the structural and institutional architectures of the sectoral system. The second, complementary factor – sectoral adaptability – helps us to discern the distinct social patterns of anticipating and absorbing this technology-based pressure. The specific interplay between the two influencing factors creates distinguishable modes of sectoral transformation, ranging from anticipative and smooth adjustments to reactive and crisis-ridden patterns of change. Even processes of radical sectoral change continue over longer periods of mismatch, characterized by a cumulation of numerous and mostly gradual organizational, structural, and institutional transformations.