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原文传递 Successful and Failing Challengers: Diesel and Steam as Alternatives to the Gasoline Automotive Engine

题名：	Successful and Failing Challengers: Diesel and Steam as Alternatives to the Gasoline Automotive Engine
作者：	Mikael Hard, Andrew Jamison
关键词：	alternative；steam；success；engine；tomo；hall；fail；dies；omot；line
摘要：	This paper aims at explaining why it is that some technologies become so entrenched in our society that it becomes virtually impossible to alter them, and why some challengers nevertheless succeed. It attempts to show that it is seldom enough to explain success and failure by reference to technical factors. By means of an historically comparative analysis of two challengers to the automobile gasoline engine-steam and diesel, the paper tries to show that history can help us understand and perhaps amend the problems that contemporary politicians and other social actors experience in trying to find niches for unconventional technologies. The central thesis is that established technologies remain because they have gained symbolic power, arc carried by deeply embedded organizational structures, and have helped to create strong behavioral patterns. An alternative technology seldom success if it poses an alternative at all three levels; indeed, the contention is that a too ambitious alternative is less likely to succeed than a conservative one. In this particular case, the diesel slowly but surely rid itself of the symbolism that had for a long time put it at a disadvantage compared to the gasoline engine; it was taken up by the same actors and organizations that supported the gasoline engine; its engineers managed too provide users with functions that were so familiar that they did not have to change their set patterns of behavior. The steamer, by contrast, did not succeed in any of these respects; its meaning came to be associated (negatively) with high fuel consumption; its organizational affiliations were weak; and users were never given the opportunity to test their willingness to modify their behavior.
报告类型：	科技报告