Technology Assessment

TA is the thorough and balanced analysis of significant primary,

secondary, indirect, and delayed interactions of a technological
innovation with society, the environment, and the economy and the
present and foreseen consequences and effects of those interactions
 TAs are significant given the growing effects of science and
technology on society, economy, and other areas.
 Technological change can be positive, but also disruptive,
making it critical for the policymakers to understand and
evaluate the effects of technology—for example, to ensure
national security and global competitiveness are maintained.

Technology Assessment Why?

People looking at their very own technological innovation tend not to
observe the environment in which it exists and tend to see only
tomorrow and forget the more distant future.
Taking a narrow and short-sighted view makes people prone to
committing grave errors of judgement.
Insular: Neglecting other views
Parochial: Narrow thinking
Nearsightedness (myopia) is a common vision condition in which you
can see objects near to you clearly, but objects farther away are blurry.
Technology assessment is a means of avoiding too narrow a view—
tunnel vision—and too short a time horizon—myopia.

Determining the Utility, A Technology for Serving Its Purpose:

• Evaluating its utility means by comparing it with other
technologies.
 • Will the particular technology be able to do the job? Also, can it
be better off, cheaper, or easier to operate than an alternative
technology?
• Will the technology fit into the firm with its given organization
and skills?
• What impacts the technology might have and what side-effects it
might cause, on the product, the workforce, the factory
environment, or on the wider environment.

Technology has become one of the principal weapons in the

competitive struggle between firms. It can be used both tactically and
strategically. How well a firm performs depends to a considerable
extent on how well it understands, masters and uses technology.
Tactics are the specific actions or steps undertaken to accomplish
specific strategy.
Technology assessment is the tool, or the frame of mind, that allows
firms to examine technologies in depth and with foresight in the
context of the firm’s interests and capabilities, as well as in the context
of the society the firm lives in.
• the study and evaluation of new technologies.
• way of trying to forecast and prepare for the upcoming
technological advancements and their repercussions to the
society, and then make decisions based on the judgments.
• It is based on the conviction that new developments within, and
discoveries by, the scientific community are relevant for the world
at large rather than just for the scientific experts themselves, and
that technological progress can never be free of ethical
implications.
Ordinary everyday sense: Evaluating a particular technology, or
technology in general, in some way.
In context of Technology Management: A systematic attempt to
foresee the consequences of introducing a particular technology in all
spheres it is likely to interact with.
The essential meaning of technology assessment is that making
technological choices should be proceeded by a thorough analysis of all
consequences the choice might have, not just the immediate or sought
for consequence.

Purpose of Technology Assessment

 Optimum use of technology.
 Avoidance of unpleasant surprises.
This can be achieved only if the technology is viewed as part of a whole
system of production, including all the hardware, software, people and
environment in the broadest sense.
TAs help policymakers understand and evaluate the effects of
technology by:
1. Highlighting potential short, medium, and long-term effects of
a technology
2. Elaborating on and communicating the challenges and benefits
associated with a technology, including early insights into the
potential effects of a technology
3. Highlighting the status, viability, relative maturity, and public
and private uses of a technology
4. Supporting planning and evaluation of investments in S&T
5. Describing the regulatory environment of a technology
6. Exploring ethical, legal, and social questions that may arise
from the application of a technology
Characteristics of Technology Assessment
1. Includes multi-variant analysis: many variables with different
units of measures are considered.
2. Concerned with multi-order impacts: direct as well as indirect
impacts are considered.
3. Incorporate multi-consistency effect: needs of a wide range of
social groups are concerned.
4. Implies multi-disciplinary approach: all aspects of human life are
considered.
5. Involves dynamic features: continues interaction between
technology and surroundings are considered.
6. Requires multi-criteria optimization: both maximization of
positive and minimization of negative effects are considered.
7. Demands multi-timeframe balancing: both short term want, and
long-term needs are considered.

Questions to Develop Steps of TA

1. About the technology:
 What is the technology we would like to assess?
 How does it relate to competing and complementary existing
technologies?
 How is it likely to develop?
2. Benefits from the technology and its sustainability:
 What benefits does the technology bring with it?
 Who will benefit from it?
 What help does it need to be given?
 How can it become sustainable?
3. Impact of the technology:
 What are the ill or unwanted effects of the technology on society?
  What can be done to control that?

Original General Methodology for TA (Jones et al., 1971)

1. Define the Assessment Task: Discuss relevant issues and any
major problems; establish scope (breadth and depth) of enquiry;
develop project ground rules;
2. Describe Relevant Technologies: Describe major technology
being assessed; describe other technologies supporting the major
technology; describe technologies competitive to the major and
supporting technologies;
3. Develop State-of-Society Assumptions: Identify and describe
major non-technological factors influencing the application of the
relevant technologies;
4. Identify Impact Areas: Ascertain those societal characteristics
that will be most influenced by the application of the assessed
technology;
5. Make Preliminary Impact Analysis: Trace and integrate the
process by which the assessed technology makes its societal
influence felt;
6. Identify Possible Action Options: Develop and analyze various
programs for obtaining maximum public advantage from the
assessed technologies;
7. Complete Impact Analysis: Analyze the degree to which each
option would alter the specific societal impacts of the assessed
technology discussed in step 5.

10 elements of TA (Coates, 1976)

1. Examine problem statements
2. Specify system alternatives
3. Identify possible impacts
 4. Evaluate impacts
5. Identify the decision apparatus
6. Identify action options for decision apparatus
7. Identify parties and interests
8. Identify macro system alternatives (other routes to goal)
9. Identify exogenous variables or events possibly having effect on 1-
8
10. Conclusion (recommendation)

10 Steps of TA (Porter et al.,1980)

1. Problem Definition
2. Technology Description
3. Technology Forecasting
4. Social Description
5. Societal Forecasting
6. Identification of Assessment Factors
7. Impact Analysis
8. Impact Evaluation
9. Policy Analysis
10. Conclusion and Recommendation
Basic Methodology for TA: STIP (Braun, 1998)
The basic methodology may be summed up as: scope, technology,
impacts, policy (STIP).
Step 1: Topic, Scope, Time Horizon
Step 2: Technology, Technology System & Development
Step 3: Benefits of Technology
Step 4: Unwanted Effects of Technology
Step 5: Analysis of Policy Option (Support & Control for Technology)

Technology Assessment of Telecommunications

We assume that it is carried out in about 1990 on behalf of a public
telecommunications operator (PTT) who holds a near monopoly in a
small European country (the client).
The team of analysts for this TA consists of a telecommunications
engineer, an economist, a policy analyst, a lawyer and a generalist team
leader, well versed in TA. The team consults with stake-holders, such as
the management of the client company, telephone users, officials of
the ministry in charge of telecommunications, telephone equipment
manufacturers, operators of mobile telephones and of cable and
satellite television. A market research organization is used to make a
forecast of various modes of telecommunications traffic. Members of a
advisory committee, consisting of several stakeholders and further
experts (a sociologist, engineers and economists), serve as advisers to
the team and critically read early versions of the report. The final report
consists of 300 pages of print and a thirty-page executive summary. The
clients consent to making the executive summary widely available.

Step 1: Topic, Scope, Time Horizon: Scope of The

Assessment and Time Horizon
Questions to Clarify:
1. What is to be the topic?
The technologies to be described and for which a development path is
to be forecast are:
1. Telephone switching technologies
2. Transmission technologies
3. Domestic and commercial customer premises
4. equipment (CPE)
5. New modes of traffic additional to voice telephony
2. What would be the scope?
The assessment should look into technological and probable cost
developments in these areas and at likely patterns of consumption. The
main impacts to be studied are:
1. Employment projects in the telecommunications industry
2. (operators and equipment manufacturers)
3. Changes in the terms of trade
4. The impact of regulatory developments (including European
integration) on the client, on telecommunications users and on
the general economy.
3. What would be the time horizon?
In view of very rapid technological and regulatory developments in the
industry, the agreed time horizon for the study was to be ten years
only.
Topic: The topic is usually a technology. It may be a social problem that
might be ameliorated by the application of technology.
Things to remember:
1. It could be Technology-oriented TA or a Problem-oriented TA.
2. In the case of public policy, the technology or problem to be
assessed must be of some interest and concern to the legislators.
 It must thus be a technology that is on the political agenda either
because it might require public support or because it might have
to be controlled by legislation, or both.
Scope: Scope clarifies whether we should look at only one narrowly
defined technology and its immediate rivals or look at the major bundle
of technologies serving related purposes.
Things to remember:
1. Scope should not be too narrow, or the assessment will be
unlikely to reveal anything of great interest.
2. Scope should not be wide, or it will become expensive and also
unmanageable and unlikely to prove of much practical help to the
decision maker.
3. Example: TA to look into the future of hydrogen as a fuel for
motor cars, or is it to be concerned with the future of road
transport?
Time Horizon: When deciding on the scope of the topic, we also need
to decide on the time horizon to be covered.
Things to remember:
1. If the time is too long: brings with it very great uncertainties
2. If the time is too short: may be insufficient to reveal truly
important aspects of the problem.
Step 2: Technology, Technology System & Development:
Description of the technologies
Questions to Clarify:
1. What is the technology we are talking about?
The technologies to be described are all undergoing rapid
development. The most striking thing: rival technologies for all
traditional telephone equipment are being emerged.
2. How does it fit into the technological system?
 Transmission media: the humble twisted pair of copper wires
→the addition of microwave transmitter → satellites → glass
fibers (lower price and greater bandwidth).
 Computer compression techniques: Reduce the amount of
information that needs to be transmitted, even though a lot of
information is passed on.
 The mode of Transmission: analogue → digital → equip all
exchanges (central offices) with digital equipment →ISDN
(integrated services digital network).
 Change in subscriber’s premises: facsimile machines, answering
machines, computers linked to the telephone network, (electronic
mail is developing, but the internet is still nebulous),
videotelephony, especially used for conferencing.
3. How is it likely to develop?
Many new services are being introduced or envisaged:
 Mobile telephony is spreading rapidly.
 Home banking, home shopping, cash machines, teleconferencing,
distance consultancy (medical and technical, including for
example, the transmission of X-ray images), distance learning
using moving images.
  Firms are developing sales networks, financial networks, networks
for cooperation at a distance in computer aided design.
 Stock market information is being transmitted and banks use
telecommunication to transfer funds.
Technology:
1. We should give description of the technology under scrutiny, or of
the technologies relevant to the solution of a problem under
consideration.
2. In addition to merely describing the main technology, a
description of alternative, complementary and rival technologies
must be included.
Technological System:
1. Technological system is a complex set of devices and material
artifacts, serving some practical material purpose.
2. Example: Railway system consists of track-bridges, a signaling sub-
system, stations, locomotives, rolling stock and an elaborate set of
rules and procedures to enable the system to function as an
effective carrier of goods and passengers.
Things to remember:
1. Complementary technologies are those that are needed to make
a technology feasible and practical, or more effective and wider in
scope.
2. Example: development of integrated circuits (IC) depends on
critically upon technologies such as growing single crystals of
silicon of very high purity, on clean room technology, on photo
lithography.
3. Alternative technologies are those that can substitute for the
main technology. In process technologies, it is often possible to
achieve the same result in several different ways.
 4. Rival technologies are those which are in direct competition.
Satellite TV broadcasting technology is in rivalry with cable
technology.

Step 3: Benefits of Technology

Questions to Clarify:
1. What benefits are to be expected?
2. What needs does it satisfy?
3. Why is it superior to present or rival technologies?
Benefits:
1. Economic: trade gains (super profit from newly innovated
technology)
2. Commercial: the technology self-reliance (one country tries to be
self-reliant in a particular technology)
3. Environmental: improvement of environment. Example: zero
emission electric cars
4. Health related: decreasing mortality rate, reducing health hazards
5. Social: improvement in social fabric of society
6. Political: the military gains (say, USA wants to become a
superpower), etc.
Things to remember:
1. Analysis should attempt to describe the non-controversial
benefits.
2. Impacts that might be regarded as benefits by some and not by
others.
3. Technologies could be deemed useful (unless proved otherwise by
showing that they cause some harmful effects).
 4. Technologies might have considerable benefits to society yet are
commercially too risky or otherwise too unattractive to become
viable without some form of public support.
5. The final arbiter of worthiness for support must be the political
decision maker.

Step 4: Ill-effects of Technology

Questions to Clarify:
1. What unwanted effects or hazards this technology might cause?
2. When undesirable impacts or dangers will be identified?
3. Who or what might be adversely affected?
Ill Effects:
1. Environmental: destructive of the natural environment (the
greenhouse effect and the holes in the ozone layer of the earth’s
atmospheres, Chernobyl nuclear disaster, etc.).
2. Health related: dangerous to human health
3. Social: disruptive of society (socio cultural destabilization satellite
communication has significant demoralizing effects on the section
of population in both the developed and the developing
countries)
4. Politico: legal problem (copyright and patent issues, etc.)
Things to remember:
1. Stick to qualitative statements of risks and impacts unless is it
quantifiable.
2. An important task of TA is to collect evidence for hazards
associated with the use of the technology. Also, figure out if there
is controversy or consensus regarding the hazards, thus identified.
3. The whole of TA report may give better insight of the technology
in question. However, it is to be noted that TA is a well-
 documented and complete assessment of the state thereby if
experts are not aware of an ill-effect of a certain technology, then
TA will fail to include that.

Step 3+4: Impacts: Benefits and ill-effects of Technology

1. Telecommunication technologies
 No adverse physical effects.
 Do not degrade the environment or
 Do not cause severe hazards to safety and health.
 The social and economic consequences, though considerable and
varied, are hard to classify into positive and negative – it all
depends on points of view.
For these reasons the third and fourth steps have been combined into a
single chapter analyzing the impacts of the new technological
developments on various aspects of society.
2. Economic- trade gains (super profit from newly innovated
technology)
 Total demand for telecommunications services is bound to
increase, as more and more services are being offered and the
technological developments are such as to drive costs (and,
hence, prices down).
 A fall in prices is caused by increased competition.
 Though this may be true, it should not be forgotten that the new
technology alone – without increased competition – causes prices
to fall.
 An electronic digital exchange costs less, performs better, and
needs less maintenance than a mechanical equivalent.
3. Employment- Number of people working
  As the production and maintenance of the new technology
demands less labor than the old technology, the net employment
purchased by each unit of investment on telecommunications
equipment will decrease.
 If tele-services become additional to traditional services, growth
will result.
 If they merely replace traditional services, no growth will be
caused.
 If the increased use of telecommunications improves the overall
efficiency of the economy, this should lead to economic growth.
Whether this growth will result in increased employment remains
uncertain
4. Organizational effectiveness
 Administrative services should become much more efficient,
 It is hard to measure efficiency in an administrative service in
principle, and paradoxical as this may seem, it might take many
years
 telecommunications and information technology to have a
discernible effect upon administrative efficiency.
5. Political
 Accelerate the trend toward globalization of businesses financial
markets,
 and trade.
 Stock dealing can take place globally round the clock;
 Goods can be ordered and shipped more efficiently, and accounts
can be settled rapidly around the world.
6. Social – Improvements in social fabric of society
Some risks of varying severity:
 drivers might have their attention diverted by conversing on the
mobile telephone
  This risk can be averted, if the law-makers wish to do so, by
suitable regulations, supported by technology.
 the possibilities offered by electronic exchanges for monitoring
telephone conversation and other communications.
 Others do not fear the malevolent state and see these possibilities
as useful in the fight against crime and in offering the consumer
more detailed billing.
7. Health related
 Dangers to health from extensive work on visual display units
(VDUs).
 Increased use of inter computer communications will increase and
amount of time people spend

Step 5: Policy Analysis: Support & Control for

Technology
Questions to Clarify:
1. What support and control might be needed?
Policy analysis: Center piece of this analysis. The future of the
telecommunication industry is dominated by questions of policy. It is
government regulation of the industry in particular that is crucial to its
future.
2. What options are available for providing them?
 Start an own policy of liberalization.
 The first step would be to introduce universal sockets that allow
all types of customer premises equipment to be connected to the
network.
 Tariff adjustments are also possible in an attempt to make prices
of services reflect cost more closely,
 On the other hand, higher services (known at the time as valuable
added services) may well be thrown open to competition.
 Although the client will try to defend the present network
monopoly, a fallback position of negotiating price for allowing
other operators to use the network, to be prepared. The option of
not preparing such a fall- back position is discussed, as well as the
option of giving up the monopoly voluntarily.
 The policy options of service provision are analyzed. With so many
new services becoming possible, the options are either to attempt
to provide them all or provide only those that are closest to the
present business and leave others to specialist providers of so-
called value-added services.
Support:
 Technology may require supportive measures for its development
and diffusion.
 The technology may not require any intervention and may thrive
happily in a purely commercial domain
 It may need help in terms of grants, tax allowances, training or
information programs, legislative or regulatory measures, or
administrative and institutional arrangements.
 TA describes technology costs and benefits, attempts to quantify
them, and assigns both costs and benefits to affected parties.
 TA also describes perceived difficulties in the path of the
technology and provides an analysis of available options for
supportive actions.