Wittner, David G. (Author)
Technology and Culture
Volume: 63
Issue: 2
Pages: 349-376
Publication date: April 2022
Language: English
Edition Details: Special Issue - Industry in Common: Thinking Globally with Modern Japan
Since the 1950s, historians have sought to explain industrial modernization in Meiji Japan as a model for developing countries. They typically attribute Japan's success to single factors such as accumulated knowledge or capital, visionary leadership, or technological choice. This article moves beyond mono-causality to examine technology transfer's role in industrial modernization. Tomioka Silk Filature and Osaka Cotton Spinning Mill make the case that components of industrialization were interrelated and a new socio-technological system was essential for technology transfer to affect a Kuhnian-style paradigm shift. Tomioka is an example of ad hoc industrialization, the gradual integration of transferred technologies, and creation of associated regimes leading to a new socio-technological system. In contrast, Osaka Cotton Mill embodies the creation of a new industrial paradigm for Japanese industry, demonstrating the essentiality of integrating numerous socio-technological elements such as adapted artifacts, bio-materials, accumulated knowledge, factory management, and geographic location.
...MoreArticle Aleksandra Kobiljski (April 2022) The Global Industrial Now. Technology and Culture (pp. 309-325).
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