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Technology Lifecycles and Digital Technologies: Patterns of Discourse across Levels of Materiality

  • The technology lifecycle model is extensively used to study technology evolution and innovation. However, this model was developed for industrial-age material technologies and does not address digital technologies with nonmaterial elements. Therefore, a question emerges as to whether the level of technological materiality is implicated in different dynamics of innovation, as reflected in theThe technology lifecycle model is extensively used to study technology evolution and innovation. However, this model was developed for industrial-age material technologies and does not address digital technologies with nonmaterial elements. Therefore, a question emerges as to whether the level of technological materiality is implicated in different dynamics of innovation, as reflected in the technology lifecycle. Digital technologies evolve through discourse that involves interactions among multiple stakeholders that shape the evolutionary trajectory of the technology. Therefore, we set out to examine whether discourse about digital technologies that vary in their level of materiality manifests in different ways throughout these technologies’ lifecycles. To do so, we conducted a study comparing the discourse around 10 digital technologies—five highly material and five highly nonmaterial—at different stages of their technology lifecycles. We identified three characteristics of discourse—volume, volatility, and diversity—and examined them for the 10 digital technologies by analyzing their corresponding Wikipedia articles. Our findings show that the discourse around technologies with different levels of materiality is similar in the initial era of the lifecycle but diverges in the two subsequent eras. In addition, we found that the discourse around highly nonmaterial technologies remains elevated for longer time periods, compared to highly material technologies. Based on these results, we put forth propositions that challenge and extend existing research on the relationships between the technological level of materiality, discourse, and trajectories of technology evolution.show moreshow less

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Metadaten
Document Type:Article (reviewed)
Zitierlink: https://opus.hs-offenburg.de/9657
Bibliografische Angaben
Title (English):Technology Lifecycles and Digital Technologies: Patterns of Discourse across Levels of Materiality
Author:Uri Gal, Nicholas Berente, Friedrich ChasinStaff MemberORCiDGND
Year of Publication:2022
Creating Corporation:Association for Information Systems
First Page:1102
Last Page:1149
Parent Title (English):Journal of the Association for Information Systems
Volume:23
Issue:5
ISSN:1536-9323
DOI:https://doi.org/10.17705/1jais.00761
Language:English
Inhaltliche Informationen
Institutes:Fakultät Wirtschaft (W)
Formale Angaben
Open Access: Closed 
Licence (German):License LogoUrheberrechtlich geschützt