The department of Organizational Sociology and Innovation Studies was founded in October 2009. Core research interests are theoretical and conceptual approaches as well as empirical case studies dealing with the effects of technologies on social structures, institutions and organizations.

Research Focus 1: Technological innovations and sectoral change

The impact of new technologies on the transformation of economic sectors represents the first main research interest of the department.

Genetic engineering for instance has significantly changed the technological principles, actor constellations and institutional structures in the pharmaceutical sector. The World Wide Web has contributed to restructuring processes in numerous sectors. The media industries (e.g. music, movies, bookselling, print media) are in particular challenged by these developments: For nearly two decades now, the internet works as a massive transformative pressure on the incumbent companies and established industries in these sectors.

New technologies in general have an impact on existing organizations, institutions and structures of economic sectors. Different sectors however are affected to a different degree: Filesharing dramatically changed the music industry, but classic business models in the car industry remain largely unchanged. Moreover, the impact of new technologies is perceived and processed differently: Some industries are characterized by strong forces of persistency; some sectors are open and more adaptive to technical innovations.

Further research will develop a theoretical framework for the analysis of sectoral change induced by technological innovations and substantiate it by doing comparative case studies on the effects of the Internet on different media industries.

Further Readings:

• Dolata, Ulrich, 2009: Technological Innovations and Sectoral Change. Transformative Capacity, Adaptability, Patterns of Change: An Analytical Framework. In: Research Policy 38(6), 1066-1076.

• Dolata, Ulrich, 2008: Das Internet und die Transformation der Musikindustrie. Rekonstruktion und Erklärung eines unkontrollierten sektoralen Wandels. In: Berliner Journal für Soziologie (18)3, 344-369.

• Fuchs, Gerhard/Sandra Wassermann, 2008: Picking a Winner? Innovation in Photovoltaics and the Political Creation of Niche Markets. In: Science, Technology & Innovation Studies (4)2, 93-113.
  
  

Research Focus 2: Beyond Organizations. The role of loosely coupled collective actors in technology development

Modern societies are characterized primarily by formal organizations and their relationships to each other. But there is a new type of actor, which plays an important role in many technology development processes today. This new type of actor cannot be adequately described with the traditional concepts of organizational sociology. Informally or totally unorganized collective actors are neither individual actors nor organizations, but if they develop massively common problem perceptions or preferences of utilization, they however can become important influential factors in innovation processes and processes of socio-technical change.

These actors can be citizens, who oppose specific new technologies (such as genetic modified organisms), or idiosyncratic and selective consumers, who use new technological products in a different manner than expected (e. g. mobile phones or SMS). This can also be unconventional technology developers, who on a massive scale start to play with new technological possibilities outside existing market structures and without commercial intentions, and thereby sometimes contribute to the de-commodification of products and the erosion of existing markets (e. g. software communities and file sharers of digital music or movies). The analysis of this new type of actors raises interesting and innovative research questions, which should be pursued in the context of comparative case studies (e. g. the role of hackers and software communities, file-sharing operators and file sharers in the transformation process of the music and film industry).

Further Readings:

• Dolata, Ulrich, 2003: Unternehmen Technik. Akteure, Interaktionsmuster und strukturelle Kontexte der Technikentwicklung: Ein Theorierahmen. Berlin: edition sigma, 21-33.