Title: Chapter 8 - preventive strategies for technological failure

Authors: Mark Manion, William M. Evan

Addresses: # #

Abstract: Two assumptions informed the chapters in this issue. First, technology, in the foreseeable future as in the past, will be a major force for social, cultural and economic changes, especially in the industrialised world. Second, as we move into the Information Age and beyond, we will find ourselves the beneficiaries of technical innovations as well as the victims of costly technological failures. In all likelihood, adverse consequences of technological innovations will polarise the population into technophiles and technophobes. Such a confrontation would, on the face of it, be counterproductive. If we are to avoid the pitfalls of living in an increasingly polarised technological society, we need to avail ourselves of institutional strategies to prevent technological failures. In this final chapter, we will consider the following five preventive institutional strategies: educational, professional, economic, legal, political.

Keywords: technological failure; preventive strategies

DOI: 10.1504/IJRAM.2001.001505

International Journal of Risk Assessment and Management, 2001 Vol.2 No.1/2, pp.183-210

Published online: 08 Jul 2003 *

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