4 The meaning of ‘technology’

Although this course focuses on the management of technological innovation, you will notice that in our discussion so far this has often simply been abbreviated to innovation. On one level the reason for doing this is simple – to avoid constant repetition of the longer term. There are, however, two other important reasons. The first stems from the fact that almost all innovations have a technological dimension or component. Consequently, almost all examples of innovation and technological innovation can be regarded as one and the same thing. This has always been true of product innovation, but became an increasingly important feature of organisational innovation from the industrial revolution onwards and especially since the advent and subsequent convergence of ICTs.