Early Phase	invention innovation competition	generalists entrepreneurs
Technological Momentum
Later Phases	consolidation rationalisation	large conservative organisations, specialist engineers
Radical Inventions Unpopular

Hughes' study served to highlight the many non-technical aspects of technological decision-making and development. In particular he showed how political factors were critical to the acceptance of a new system. He pointed out that engineering textbooks often discuss only the technical components of a technological system "leaving students with the mistaken impression that problems of system growth and management are neatly circumscribed and preclude factors often perjoratively labeled 'politics'."

He described a pattern by which large technological systems seem to evolve. He suggested that most start with radical inventions. These are inventions, such as the telephone, electric light, steam turbine, the wireless or the airplane which generate a new system, as opposed to conservative inventions which improve or add to an existing system. Radical inventions, he said, are generally made by 'independent' people who are not part of an existing system and tend not to be employed in research laboratories. Such radical inventions are not welcomed by organisations with a vested interest in an existing system: "Radical inventions often deskill workers, engineers, and managers, wipe out financial investments, and generally stimulate anxiety in large organizations." When faced with a problem that threatens the stability of the system, the engineer, rather than considering building a new system, tries to rearrange or manipulate the system components or perhaps to incorporate a hostile environment.

For radical inventions to grow into technological systems they need to be provided with "economic, political, and other characteristics needed for survival." It is during this phase that the social skills of the inventor can be crucial. As a technological system grows, Hughes argued, it develops a mass which is made up of institutions and people who have a vested interest in maintaining the system. These include manufacturers who have invested in resources, labour and manufacturing plant for the system, educational institutions that teach the associated science and practice, research institutions, professional societies, as well as people such as engineers and managers who have invested their experience and expertise in the system. The system not only has mass but also direction; that is, development of the system proceeds along conservative lines that can be extrapolated. It aquires a 'technological momentum'.

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Reference:

Thomas Hughes, Networks of Power: Electrification in Western Society, 1880-1930 (Baltimore and London: John Hopkins University Press, 1983).