Jane Summerton

Changing Large Technical Systems

Introduction - the systems approach to understanding technological change, Jane Ummerton. Part 1 Combining old and new technologies to reshape systems: recombining large technical systems - the case of European organ transplantation, Ingo Braun and Bernward Joerges changing embedded systems - the economics and politics of innovation in American railroad signalling, 1876-1914, Steven W. Usselman integrating supple technologies into utility power systems - possibilities for reconfiguration, Alexandra Suchard the normal accident of July 1914, Arden Bucholz. Part 2 Crossing borders reconfigures systems: transformation through integration - the unification of German telecommunications, Tobias Robischon multinationals in transition - global technical integration and the role of corporate telecommunication networks, Volker Schneider the Australian electric power industry and the politics of radical reconfiguration, Stephen M. Salsbury economics of changing grid systems - competition in the electricity supply industry, Olivier Coutard. Part 3 Confronting incompatibilities between changing systems and their cultures: the Internet challenge - conflict and compromise in computer networking, Jane Abbate broken plowshare - system failure and the nuclear power industry, Gene I. Rochlin. Part 4 Controlling the car - will the system change?: car traffic at the crossroads - new technologies for cars, traffic systems and their interaction, Reiner Grundmann rethinking road traffic as social interaction, Oskar Juhlin. Part 5 The logic of systemic technology: four notes on systemic technology, Svante Beckman. Part 6 Concluding comments: conclusion, Jane Summerton.

Constructing Risk and Safety in Technological Practice

Modern technological systems entail risks and uncertainties of hitherto unknown dimensions. This book discusses the construction of risk and safety within a variety of empirical contexts where tech ...

Do electrons have politics? Constructing user identities in Swedish electricity

Electricity systems in many parts of Europe and the United States are currently undergoing transformations that have potentially profound implications for managerial practice and the politics of user identities within these systems. After more than a century of “universal service” that provided technical goods and services to all users on essentially equal terms, utility managers are now constructing and exploiting heterogeneity and difference among users. This article explores local managerial practices within Swedish electricity in the mid-1990s, where managers promoted “brand-name” electricity as a strategy for configuring identities for users, their utilities, and electricity itself. These dynamics are analyzed using theoretical perspectives from two bodies of science and technology studies on configuring users’ identities. The article then analyzes the emergent practices and their theoretical and political implications for understanding of how and why artifacts, users, and organizational entities are coconstituted in ongoing technoscientific practice in infrastructural systems.

Towards a dispersed electrical system: Challenges to the grid

Abstract A number of countries are currently restructuring their regulations to accommodate dispersed electrical production, resulting in rapid organizational change in grid systems. Dispersed electrical generation in enterpreneurial, industrial and municipal projects appears to be gaining legitimacy and experience. In California, new suppliers of electricity have delivered some 5 800 MW of new capacity to utilities, representing almost 15% of total state electrical capacity. Californias policy in stimulating non-utility power has posed four critical policy issues: how to manage oversupply, how to set rates based on avoided cost, how to accommodate extensive self-supply from cogeneration, and how to respond to pressures for greater access to transmission lines for ‘wheeling’ of power. Events in California illustrate specific policy approaches and lessons learned that are potentially valuable for others interested in stimulating dispersed electrical supply in traditional grid systems. Several issues remain, however, unresolved.

Loyalty or competition? A comparative analysis of Norwegian and Swedish electricity distributors' adaptation to market reform

Recent electricity reforms in Norway and Sweden, aimed at introducing competition in production and trade, have challenged traditional producer-distributor networks. This paper examines the responses of municipal distributors in three types of networks at the outset of the respective reforms, namely vertically integrated networks, networks integrated by ownership ties, and contractually integrated networks. While some distributors in the two countries have chosen competitive, exit-oriented strategies, others have remained loyal to their pre-existing suppliers. Analysis of these emergent patterns reveals that the new market regimes have not automatically implied a shift to a competitive regime but rather to a remolding of traditional networks to suit the new market order. Besides short-term commercial considerations, municipal distributor strategies seem to reflect societal and long-term strategic levels of exchange.