Towards a contingency framework for MoT theory

The foundation of the paper is the discussion of different traditions and approaches to management of technology (MoT) and to technology studies (TS) at firm level. The current confusion and many different traditions regarding the content of MoT leads to the identification of a need for a contingency model for MoT theory. And contingency factors should be related to empirical challenges of firms, thereby enabling technology managers to apply MoT theory pragmatically. It is argued that existing mappings of MoT theory are, indeed, not sufficiently related to empirical contingency factors. Thus, the main purpose of the paper is to discuss such empirical contingency factors that could be applied to MoT theory and make it more useful for technology managers in practice. The well-known distinction between technology exploitation and disruptive technological change is discussed and dismissed as too simplistic. Instead, three situations for technology management are formulated and briefly related to MoT theory to round up the paper. The latter forms the main contribution of the paper