Department of Communication Studies, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60201, USA.
Soc Stud Sci. 2010 Apr;40(2):243-74. doi: 10.1177/0306312709346079.
Today, in the midst of economic crisis, senior executives at US automakers and influential industry analysts frequently reflect on the progression that safety testing has taken from the crude trials done on the road, to controlled laboratory experiments, and to today's complex math-based simulation models. They use stories of this seemingly linear and natural sequence to justify further investment in simulation technologies. The analysis presented in this paper shows that change in the structures of automakers' organizations co-evolved with regulations specifying who was at fault in vehicle impacts, how vehicles should be built to withstand the force of an impact, and how testing should be done to assure that vehicles met those requirements. Changes in the regulatory environment were bolstered by new theories about crash test dynamics and changing technologies with which to test those theories. Thus, as new technological and regulatory innovations co-evolved with innovations in organizational structuring, ideas about how to best conduct crash tests shifted and catalyzed new cycles of technological, regulatory, and organizational innovation. However, this co-evolutionary story tells us that the move from road to lab to math was not natural or linear as today's managerial rhetoric would have us believe. Rather, the logic of math-based simulation was the result of technological, regulatory and organizational changes that created an industry-wide ideology that supported the move toward math while making it appear natural within the shifting structure of the industry.
如今，在美国汽车制造商的高管和有影响力的行业分析师们正处于经济危机之中，他们经常反思安全测试从最初在道路上进行的粗略试验，到控制实验室实验，再到如今基于复杂数学的模拟模型的发展历程。他们用这个看似线性和自然的发展顺序的故事来证明对模拟技术进行进一步投资的合理性。本文的分析表明，汽车制造商组织结构的变化与规定车辆碰撞责任方、车辆应如何设计以承受碰撞力以及如何进行测试以确保车辆符合这些要求的法规一起协同演变。监管环境的变化得到了关于碰撞测试动力学的新理论和测试这些理论的新技术的支持。因此，随着新的技术和监管创新与组织结构的创新共同发展，关于如何最好地进行碰撞测试的想法发生了变化，并推动了新的技术、监管和组织创新周期。然而，这个共同进化的故事告诉我们，从道路到实验室再到数学的转变并不是自然而然或线性的，就像当今的管理言论所让我们相信的那样。相反，基于数学的模拟的逻辑是技术、监管和组织变革的结果，这些变革创造了一种全行业的意识形态，支持向数学的转变，同时使这种转变在行业不断变化的结构中显得自然而然。
