Socio-technological

Sociotechnology (short for "social technology") is the study of processes on the intersection of society and technology. Vojinović and Abbott define it as "the study of processes in which the social and the technical are indivisibly combined". Sociotechnology is an important part of socio-technical design, which is defined as "designing things that participate in complex systems that have both social and technical aspects".

The term has been attributed to Mario Bunge. He defines it as a grouping of social engineering and management science. He sees it thus as a form of technology, distinguished from other branches of it such as engineering, biotechnology, information technology and general technology. Its goal is to help engineer sociosystems and evaluate their performance, while making use of social science research. In short, sociotechnology can be seen as the creation, modification and maintenance of social systems.

Writing on sociotechnical change, Bijker wrote: "Society is not determined by technology, nor is technology determined by society. Both emerge as two sides of the sociotechnical coin."

Technology is the sum of ways in which social groups construct the material objects of their civilizations. The things made are socially constructed just as much as technically constructed. The merging of these two things, construction and insight, is sociotechnology. "For example, we typically build a bridge when there’s some expectation that people need to get from Point A to Point B, and there’s something they need to bypass along the way (e.g. a river, a canyon, another road). Failure to consider the social factors as well as the technical factors could lead to a "bridge to nowhere" – and we all know at least one person who’s had a problem with those" (Radziwill, 2009).

Business use "richness and reach". The richness and reach strategy has evolved with technology. Richness is the ability to understand the information being passed for example calling someone is less rich than face to face contact. Reach is the number of people who exchange the information. In the past it was easier to complete richness and reach, but now with new technologies like video chatting, it is easier for business to do fulfill both richness and reach. Positive economics is the study of existing (or historical) means of exchange- a social science such as sociology, history, and political sciences. Normative economics is the social technology because it attempts to create different kinds of economic arrangements.

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