Processus d'innovation et creation d'irreversibilites : essai sur les trajectoires technologiques (le cas du machinisme agricole)
Institution:
Lyon 2Disciplines:
Directors:
Abstract EN:
In demonstrating, first, the temporal nature of the innovation process and, second, the dependence of technological evolution vis a vis both productive structures and past technical choices, the agricultural mechanization is studied through its technological, industrial and institutional dimensions. The evolution over time of the agricultural mechanization appears successively as a competition and selection process which operated historically between a relatively wide range of alternative technical solutions. It also appears as a process of emergence of dominant technical designs. These phenomenas reveal an irreversible localization of technical progress which is analyzed as a structuring mechanism in the pattern of evolution along a technological trajectory. Industrialization of production of agricultural machineries, delicated production processes and specialized agricultural farms, growing iterrelatedness between industrial inputs, are phenomenas which reveal the reality of the rigidification of the "technical model" of mechanization. Both technical choices and innovation processes themselves are sequential and cumulative. They are also constrained by the processes themselves are sequential and cumulative. They are also constrained by the inter-generational compatibility of technical processes and equipments.
Abstract FR:
En montrant que le processus d'innovation prend du temps, que l'evolution technologique n'est pas contigente par rapport aux structures productives et aux choix techniques faits dans le passe, on analyse la trajectoire de la mecanisation agricole dans ses dimensions technologiques, industrielles et institutionnelles. L'evolution dans le temps de la mecanisation agricole apparait successivement comme un processus de competition et de selection entre solutions techniques, puis comme un processus d'emergence de conceptions techniques dominantes. Cela revele une localisation irreversibl3 du progres technique, qui apparait comme mecanisme structurant d'une trajectoire technologique. L'emergence de structures productives stables dans l'industrie et l'agriculture constitue le cadre qui delimite le champs des possibles en matiere d'innovation. L'industrialisation de la production de machines agricoles, la specialisation des processus de production et des exploitations agricoles, la croissance des interdependances techniques avec les inputs d'origine industrielle, temoignent d'une rigidification du modele technique de mecanisation lourde. Les choix techniques et les innovations technologiques sont par necessite sequentiels et cumulatifs, et contraints par la compatibilite inter-generationnelle des techniques et des equipements.