Re: Query on technology dissemination

Hi Louis,

On the "more prosaic than Latour" side of things you might want to  
examine studies in the Information Systems literature, starting with  
the old standby, "Technology Acceptance Model" (TAM).  That said you  
may find TAM specific literature to be too tightly confined to a  
rational actor model, concerned more with assessments of system  
characteristics (ease of use, usefulness etc) than the types of  
reasons you consider below.  You may find the critiques of the TAM to  
be more useful in that regard.  There was a special edition on where  
next for TAM recently.  Journal of the Association for Information  
Studies, Vol 8, Issue 4 (2007):

http://jais.aisnet.org/articles/default.asp?vol=8&art=16

I suspect you will also find useful work in the tradition of  
considering organizational politics in technology acceptance.  Perhaps  
start with Markus (1983) and work forward in the MIS literature (ISR,  
MISQ, JAIS etc). I know there have been a number of politics of ERP  
implementation studies more recently.

Markus, M L (1983) Power, Politics and MIS Implementation.   
COmmunications of the ACM. Volume 26,  Issue 6.
http://www.bus.ucf.edu/csaunders/ism7939/Power%20Politics%20CACM.pdf

Another starting point might be the diffusion of innovations  
literature (rogers et al), perhaps this special edition will be a  
useful starting point:

Database (ACM SIGMIS)
Special issue on adoption, diffusion, and infusion of IT
http://portal.acm.org/toc.cfm?id=506724&type=issue&coll=GUIDE&dl=GUIDE&CFID=5065933&CFTOKEN=57901000#506725

Having said that you might also want to look in the marketing  
literature, where I'm sure this phenomenon is highly researched,  
outside IT artifacts and potentially at the individual level where you  
indicate you are concentrating.

Finally, you may find interesting historical considerations in the  
european tradition of political economy, particularly historical  
studies of Luddism.

Cheers,
James

On 5 Oct 2008, at 5:30 PM, Louis Suarez-Potts wrote:

> Hi
> To clarify:
>
> I am interested NOT in the Latour problematic of technological  
> dissemination in the abstract but in the particular and personal  
> problem of persuading fellow humans to adopt technology that affects  
> them in a likely mysterious and possibly adverse way. Thus, Geertz,  
> Foucault, those theorists are probably more relevant, but still  
> likely to be too abstract. Looking at, say, the history of  
> evolution's dissemination may be more to the point but only insofar  
> as it focuses on what was gained or lost by particular individuals  
> in their public acceptance or rejection of its claims.
>
> ciao,
> Louis
>
> On 2008-10-05, at 21:46 , Louis Suarez-Potts wrote:
>
>> I'm not sure my subject line is accurate. I'm interested in studies  
>> that examine the specific behavioural/human aspects of  
>> technological dissemination within any given population. My focus  
>> happens to be Foss, but it could actually be anything.
>>
>> The problem: all of us have doubtless encountered human obstacles  
>> (so to speak) who resist clearly better technology and techniques  
>> for producing and distributing it.  These people resist for  
>> generally rational but personal reasons: they will lose power,  
>> influence, their job if they acquiesce to the new order. You can't  
>> really fault them and working with them is the generally the best  
>> solution. But what studies are out there that examine this general  
>> phenomenon, that could be characterized as, "Resisting the New"?  
>> Again, Foss is my focus but it could be anything, or perhaps  
>> anything sufficiently disruptive to a large enough group. I'd  
>> suspect that anthropology has examined this best but I'd not be  
>> surprised if behavioural economics has also taken on the issue. If  
>> not, it's a fine subject :-) One need only choose a particular  
>> technology, practice, issue.
>>
>> Thanks
>> louis
>>
>>
>> --
>> Louis Suarez-Potts, PhD
>> Community Manager, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
>> OpenOffice.org
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Community mailing list
>> [email protected]
>> http://opensource.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/community
>
> _______________________________________________
> Community mailing list
> [email protected]
> http://opensource.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/community
>