Peter F. Drucker on Technology

CHAPTER FOUR

Technological Trends in the Twentieth Century

TECHNOLOGICAL ACTIVITY DURING the twentieth century has changed in its structure, methods, and scope. It is this qualitative change which explains even more than the tremendous rise in the volume of work the emergence of technology in the twentieth century as central in war and peace, and its ability within a few short decades to remake man’s way of life all over the globe.

This over-all change in the nature of technological work during this century has three separate though closely related aspects: (1) structural changes—the professionalization, specialization, and institutionalization ...