Innovation doesn’t work. The explanatory power of a socio-technical approach

BECERRA, LUCAS; HERNÁN THOMAS

Engaging Science, Technology, and Society

The Society for Social Studies of Science (4S)

Año: 2023

Aprobado para su publicación el 9 de octubre del 2022 según registro del OJS del Journal.AbstractThe current work is presented interms of a problem-solution relationship, linking two questions presented inthe current ESTS thematic collection: When it comes to engaging with and actingupon socio-technical change, is ‘innovation’ part of the solution or of theproblem? And, what new conceptual and empirical resources can STS bring to thestudy of innovation?The “problematicside” (the first question) of our argument is focused in the theoreticalconstrains of “innovation” as analytical concept. Then, from the “solutionside” (the second question), we introduce one definition of socio-technicalchange developed after almost 20 years of theoretical and empiricalanalysis.  The InteractiveSocio-cognitive Model is presented as an explanatory framework to deploy thenotion of socio-technical change in order to make explicit the explanatory (andprogrammatic) advantages that this notion has.