Investigating the Relationship between Technologic Development and Social Development Dimensions (A Comparative Study of Iranian Provinces)

1.Introduction It has been decades since the concept of economic development was considered as one of the steady foundations of planning carried out in the developing countries. Either before or after the Iranian Islamic Revolution, the industrial development has always been the major strategy of the governments. Meanwhile, the impediments of such a strategy have been revealed for years, both in theory and practice. In turn, other strategies such as social and sustainable development have been gaining significance. In the present study, given Iran’s priorities on the development of industries and technologies throughout the country, it is attempted to investigate the impacts of technology expansion on various dimensions of social development (distributive and human social development). In this regard, the main questions to be investigated in the study are as follows: 1) What is the status quo of Iranian provinces in terms of social and technologic developments? 2) What are the impacts of technologic development on various dimensions of social development in different Iranian provinces? 2. Theoretical Framework In the West, technology and social development have been evolving alongside each other (Francois, 2002); however, the conditions of the countries developed after the West are different. One idea regarding such countries points to the advantages of their late development, as it may lead to a form of technologic shift. This method of technologic development can affect social development both positively and negatively due to its sudden introduction to the society. When the effect is positive, the outcome of mechanism enables manufacturers to act successfully, which is also beneficial to others. These consequences are, in fact, the means through which the benefits of essential dynamics are offered for the sake of the social development of the economy (Bannet, 2004; Bisin & Verdier, 2001; Francois, 2002; Kuznets, 1962). However, the second argument suggesting the negative impact of technologic progress on social development is based on the idea that the possibility of fast improvement can practically result in highly adverse consequences in social development. Such issues can arise when, despite their advantages in increasing productivity, new technology requires imposing heavy damage on a part of vulnerable manufacturers. Habits are resistant and preferences cannot be moderated overnight. When a newer, more efficient technology reaches the utilization stage, it may involve an ever-increasing growth in reliability, even though the reliability levels remain the same as the beginning point for a while. The more the differences between a new technology and its old form, the more the imbalance between the current level of social capital and its required level for new technology. If such a difference is too extensive, then new technology would not persist; consequently, entrepreneurs introducing that technology would fail. Then fewer entrepreneurs would take the risks of modern production; therefore, the dynamic benefits of reliability require positive consequences offered by successful entrepreneurs, while their failure is in fact a threat against the social capital of the society. Evidently, attempts made to introduce significant changes are bound to fail due to the presence of a form of imbalance between the initial level of social capital in the society and the required social capital for new technology (Francois, 2002; Kalen & Fang, 2015).
Under these conditions, the majority of such countries are faced with a sociocultural duality, and become subject to economic and sociocultural imbalance on a daily basis, moving away from various indices of social development (Abdullahi, 1987; Eliyas, 1985; Gharbaghian, 1991; Mousayi, 2009). On the other hand, this type of technologic development has not led to a proper distribution of income and poverty in Peru (Todaro, 1992).
Considering the dominant approach on the strategy of industrial and technologic advances in the country, the purpose of the present study is to evaluate the impact of technologic development on various dimensions of social development. 3.Methodology The present explanatory study was conducted using the quantitative-comparative method through testing hypotheses or contrasting the theoretical assumptions with the facts implied by these assumptions. The unit and level of analysis were “provinces” and “the country”, respectively, and the observation unit was “province/year”. The study was carried out according to the quantitative data of provinces during the years 2001-2016. Secondary analysis was used for data collection. 4.Results The findings of the study suggest that Semnan Province is ranked first among others with the highest rate of technologic development given its population, followed by Yazd and Qazvin, respectively. Yazd Province is the most developed province in terms of distributive social development. Fars Province is ranked first in terms of social capital, and the highest extent of inequality belongs to Tehran and Golestan Provinces.
The results of regression analysis indicate that almost 44% of variance and changes in the distributive dimension of social development are explained by technologic development. The statistics demonstrate the fact that the technologic development variable directly affects the distributive aspect of social development with a beta value of 0.68. That is, the technologic development variable is effective in term of social development from a distributive dimension. Furthermore, the results also showed that the technologic development of provinces is of no significant impact on the amount of social capital as well as the extent of inequalities in provinces. 5.Conclusion In this study, the historical process of development theories was examined, showing how the concept of social development has been gaining considerable importance during the past two decades. Moreover, the concept of social development has shown new dimensions as a result of its evolution and growth throughout history. Then, the theoretical relationship between the technologic and social development was clarified based on which the hypotheses of the study were formulated. According to the findings of the study, technologic development affects the distributive dimension of social development, whereas it does not involve significant impact in terms of social capital as well as inequality (human dimensions of social development) in Iranian provinces.