Dear Martin,

You are very welcome. Unfortunately, classification approaches and relevant taxonomies for technology in general (that is, on one or more highest levels), are quite difficult, if not impossible, to generate and I'm not aware of some "universal" ones. Having said that, there are various approaches and taxonomies that might be of your interest in the context of your planned research. The following links are results of my brief research on the topic (excludes domain taxonomies, such as IEEE and ACM ones on computing). I hope that you will find this is helpful.

Taxonomies:

- NASA SBIB/STTR Taxonomy: http://sbir.nasa.gov/topic-taxonomy/52896;

- 2014 IEEE Taxonomy: https://www.ieee.org/documents/taxonomy_v101.pdf;

- IF4IT Inventory of Taxonomies (IT-focused, but still useful): http://www.if4it.com/taxonomy.html;

- International Patent Classification: http://www.wipo.int/classifications/ipc/en;

- FARSEEING Taxonomy of Technologies: http://farseeingresearch.eu/resources/taxonomyoftechnologies (see link to PDF at bottom of the page).

Research Papers and Books:

- Pavitt's Taxonomy paper: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0048733384900180;

- Follow-up paper on Pavitt's taxonomy: http://www.danielearchibugi.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Archibugi_Pavitt_Taxonomy.pdf;

- Paper on technological regimes and innovation: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1625823 or http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733310000247;

- Book on taxonomy for technology domain: http://www.igi-global.com/chapter/investigation-into-taxonomy-technology-domain/30053;

- Very interesting MIT working paper / master's thesis on taxonomy generation techniques: http://web.mit.edu/smadnick/www/wp/2010-01.pdf.

Best regards,

Aleksandr

Accoding to khalil (2000), there are 6 classifications of technology namely new, old, medium, high, low, and appropriate technologies.

While there are 4 components of technology: technoware, infoware, humanware, & orgaware.

With many terminologies in MOT, levels of technology also exists interm of incremental-radical, exploitation-exploration, etc.

I think that it all depends on the set of criteria that one chooses to produce a particular classification scheme. You can come up with various classification schemes, based on criteria preferred or fit the context of your study. I very much doubt that a more general classification scheme exists or even possible, since by definition ("according to shared qualities and characteristics" -Wikipedia), classification implies relying on a criterion or a set of criteria to actually produce a taxonomy.

Dear Aleksandr, thank you for your comment. I totally agree with you that the basis of all categorizations (typologies and taxonomies) is the criteria or indicator. And exactly in this direction aims my questions. What categories exist and which are their underlying criteria? As one major task of science is to study phenomena and categorization is one major element, I was wondering how other researchers operationalise such technological change e.g. in an industry. I mean we have plenty categories of resources or capabilities and dozens of categories for firms and their strategies. So, do we have categories of technologies, e.g. to compare changes in industries?

Dear Martin,

You are very welcome. Unfortunately, classification approaches and relevant taxonomies for technology in general (that is, on one or more highest levels), are quite difficult, if not impossible, to generate and I'm not aware of some "universal" ones. Having said that, there are various approaches and taxonomies that might be of your interest in the context of your planned research. The following links are results of my brief research on the topic (excludes domain taxonomies, such as IEEE and ACM ones on computing). I hope that you will find this is helpful.

Taxonomies:

- NASA SBIB/STTR Taxonomy: http://sbir.nasa.gov/topic-taxonomy/52896;

- 2014 IEEE Taxonomy: https://www.ieee.org/documents/taxonomy_v101.pdf;

- IF4IT Inventory of Taxonomies (IT-focused, but still useful): http://www.if4it.com/taxonomy.html;

- International Patent Classification: http://www.wipo.int/classifications/ipc/en;

- FARSEEING Taxonomy of Technologies: http://farseeingresearch.eu/resources/taxonomyoftechnologies (see link to PDF at bottom of the page).

Research Papers and Books:

- Pavitt's Taxonomy paper: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0048733384900180;

- Follow-up paper on Pavitt's taxonomy: http://www.danielearchibugi.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Archibugi_Pavitt_Taxonomy.pdf;

- Paper on technological regimes and innovation: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1625823 or http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733310000247;

- Book on taxonomy for technology domain: http://www.igi-global.com/chapter/investigation-into-taxonomy-technology-domain/30053;

- Very interesting MIT working paper / master's thesis on taxonomy generation techniques: http://web.mit.edu/smadnick/www/wp/2010-01.pdf.

Best regards,

Aleksandr