Wiebe Bijker

SCOT, developed by Wiebe Bijker and Trevor Pinch in the 1980s, argues that technologies develop through negotiation among different "relevant social groups" who interpret and assign competing meanings to a technology. Rather than following a single inevitable path, a design becomes dominant through social processes of conflict and compromise.

Bijker's classic case study is the bicycle, which he used to show how different social groups — racers, women, elderly riders, safety advocates — favored competing designs before the modern "safety bicycle" became dominant. Earlier forms like the high-wheeled penny-farthing eventually lost out as the meaning of "what a bicycle should be" was socially resolved.

Bijker's key work is "Of Bicycles, Bakelite, and Bulbs: Toward a Theory of Sociotechnical Change" (1995), which uses case studies of the bicycle, Bakelite plastic, and the fluorescent lamp to demonstrate how technologies are socially constructed. The book extends the SCOT framework into a broader theory of how technical and social change are intertwined.

Wiebe E. Bijker is a professor at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, where he has been a central figure in establishing the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS) in Europe. He is Dutch and has contributed significantly to building STS programs and methodology across European universities.