Expectations in Technological Developments: an Example of Prospective Structures to be Filled in by Agency

This chapter analyses the dynamics of expectations in technological developments as a mode of coordination. Technology is an interesting research site, since here novelty is created: not just new products, but also new linkages and emerging technical-scientific fields. On the basis of case studies we will discuss how expectations structure activities differently than structures normally do: expectations help to interlock and to coordinate activities and to build up agendas. Because of their 'script', expectations allocate roles for selves, others and (future) artefacts. When these roles are adopted, a new social order emerges on the basis of collective projections of the future.
In sociology, several theoretical attempts have been made to fill the gap between a functionalism which forgets creative actors, and an interactionism which forgets about constraining structure. Such attempts (e.g. Giddens, Berger and Luckmann, Boudon, Strauss) seek to overcome the dualism of structure versus agency. The key issues are how actions lead to structures, and how these structures enable and constrain action.
Technology dynamics teaches us that structure emerges and action is shaped in a way in which content matters as much as traditional sociological categories of explanation. It is the content of orientations and scripts which pulls actors together and which, when they enact appropriate strategies, generates a structure which shapes further action. The key point here is that structures can be >merely= prospective, and still be influential. To emphasize this, we introduce the (paradoxical) term prospective structure. A prospective structure is made up of links which can appear in texts. In the subsequent actions and reactions, the structure is filled in, modified, reshuffled; and becomes social structure (in its various forms).