Essay Example on Technology Innovation: Business Production and Management

The evolution of technology is because of changes occurring in society, and they are all born out of purpose. An example of technology innovation is in business production and management globally. Every organization seeks to establish or identify an innovative technology to enable it to run and operate its functions effectively in a more convenient way than its local and international competitors. When the company adopts a superior technology that works at the low cost of production with an increased level of production act as its competitive advantage over the existing businesses competitors that produce or provide the same product and services respectively and thus enable retain and sustain its dominance on the market. Changes in technology happen because people look for innovative ways that they will use to exploit the current resources and meet their demands (de Vries, 2017). Technology evolution is driven by interactions with sub-systems that seek to consider technical choices, requirements, and advances in science. These then generate new and improved products and processes that will be used for the needs of people to solve the most complex problems in society. The evolution of technology is vital in aspects of the economy and social changes for society. Evolution works in a stepwise manner as it involves the comprehensive development of the systems. This essay will look to compare and contrast the perspectives of Gerhard Lenski, Leslie White, and Alvin Toffler with respect to the evolution of technology.

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The perspective of Gerhard Lenski concerning the evolution of technology is that it is of a sociocultural approach. Lenski views technological progress as a basic factor in the growth of cultures and societies. His focus is more on information, the amount and the uses as well. Lenski claims that members of society gain unity from sharing a culture even though the cultural patterns are seen to become divergent as society allows complex technology and information (de Vries, 2017). Advancements are witnessed where society has more information and knowledge that enables them to shape the environment. Lenski highlights that the evolvement of the societies is with a goal to meet the changes that occur to both the natural and also social environment. Lenski distinguishes the stages of human development as being based on the advances in the history of communication. In the first stage, Lenski suggests that genes are involved in the passing of information. In the second stage, he highlights that individual experience can help pass information with the development of agriculture. The fourth stage involves creating symbols and developing language. In the technology of communication, their advances translate to those of a society’s economic system, political system, goods distribution, inequality in society, and also social life (de Vries, 2017). Lenski links the advancement in technology to factors such as genetic heritage, cultural information, the growing population, and interactions in society. These factors have significantly contributed to forcing people to invent measures that are adaptive to meet the changes that have occurred in the sociocultural environment.

Leslie White’s perspective about the evolution of technology is that it is based on the capability to ensure energy control. White was in firm support of cultural evolution along with the views of other anthropologists. For him, cultural evolution was a result of technological changes, especially because of the increase in harnessing energy per capita. Evolution was bound to happen if there were attempts by humans to solve problems existing in society and drive survival. In this case, it forced more people to capture energy to meet their diverse needs. White highlighted the need to describe everything in the universe in terms of energy, such as the galaxies, stars, and also living organisms (de Vries, 2017). In describing the culture, White refers to it as being an organization of phenomena and even a kind of behavior that may be treated as a manifestation of energy. Culture is essential to man because it serves their needs. White describes how man demonstrates their energy and control in a wild economy. He suggests that the more the energy that man is able to harness, the better the efficiency and technological evolution (de Vries, 2017). The growth of culture serves as the greatest factor to aid in technological evolution. It is a culture that determines the extent to which there will be advances in technology as well as the ability to harness more power. To White, the amount of energy that culture can harness determines the evolution of technology.

Alvin Toffler also has a perspective on the evolution of technology that focuses on his description of future shock. Toffler highlighted that the dramatic changes in technology were leaving people in a state of future shock (Islas et al., 2018). The levels of change that had been put forward could lead to issues in disorientation for the people who were caught in it as well as a state of immobility if they were provided with too many choices. Future shock is described as the perception of a lot of change that was bound to happen in only a short time. According to Toffler, the society is going through many social and technological changes in the society which includes rapid advancement through changes in technology (Islas et al., 2018). The issue is that the changes seem to be overwhelming the people caught in between them. When it is at the worst, the shock may lead to alienation of individuals and information overload may result in cracks appearing in the social order (Islas et al., 2018). Toffler’s perspective can be seen as amazingly accurate because the present era is at a time where the pace of change can barely be managed as there are constant developments being faced on a daily basis.

Conclusion

The technology evolution of Lenski links his perspective to measures that humans need to take to meet their needs for survival. Members of society gain unity from sharing a culture even though the cultural patterns are seen to become divergent as society allows complex technology and information. The perspective of White seeks to link the changes in technology development to the energy that humans should harness. Evolution is bound to happen if there were attempts by humans to solve problems existing in society and drive survival. For White, technology is a major factor when it comes to the evolution of society. Toffler’s perspective of evolution is that there are many changes to technology that are likely to cause a future shock to the people caught in the process. Both White and Lenski consider technological evolution to have needed to meet the many changes in society as well as the needs of humans. Lenski and White do not address the impacts of the evolution of technology on people and whether they are ready to handle it. This way, the perspective of Toffler is more realistic and accurate.

References

de Vries, G. (2017). Evolutionary theory. The WileyBlackwell Encyclopedia of Social Theory, 1-9. https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/60332834/Geert_de_Vries_Evolutionary_theory_EST_2017.pdf?1566222881=&response-content-disposition=inline%3B+filename%3DEvolutionary_theory.pdf

Islas, O., Arribas, A., & Gutiérrez, F. (2018). The contribution of Alvin Toffler to the theoretical and conceptual imaginary of communication. Revista Latina de Comunicación Social, (73), 648-661. http://www.revistalatinacs.org/073paper/1274/RLCS-paper1274en.pdf