The Fishbone diagram to identify, systematize and analyze the sources of general purpose technologies

This study suggests the fishbone diagram for technological analysis. Fishbone diagram (also called Ishikawa diagrams or cause-and-effect diagrams) is a graphical technique to show the several causes of a specific event or phenomenon. In particular, a fishbone diagram (the shape is similar to a fish skeleton) is a common tool used for a cause and effect analysis to identify a complex interplay of causes for a specific problem or event. The fishbone diagram can be a comprehensive theoretical framework to represent and analyze the sources of innovation. Fishbone diagram is applied here as a novel graphical representation to identify, explore and analyse whenever possible, the potential root causes of the source and evolution of General Purpose Technologies (GPTs). Overall, then, fishbone diagram seems to be an appropriate and general technique of graphical representation to explore and categorize, clearly and simply, the potential root causes of the evolution of technological innovations for an appropriate management of technology.