Technological innovation and Western values

摘要

This paper provides some explanations as to why modern technology originated in the West, and why firms in the United States and Western Europe lead in technological innovation. In the paper technology is viewed as a subsystem of a cultural system, including ideas and norms. The values identified as underpinning the West's preeminence in technology are the desire to control and bend nature to serve human needs; reliance on reason as the sole means of under- Standing the world as well as for the solution of problems relating to the material universe; Emphasis on individualism and change; and acceptance of happiness as the supreme good.