Comparing Two Definitions of ‘Welfare technology’ - An Ideal-type Analysis Using Industrial and Welfare Societies
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15626/ishimr.2020.09Abstract
The Swedish government has recently invested millions in ‘welfare technologies’, which are aimed at both enhancing safety and solve the demographic problem of an increasing elderly population and a consequent lack of healthcare personnel. Studies have shown that when welfare technologies are implemented, core values are getting lost due to a lack of knowledge on how to transform the caregiving and care-taking relationship through the use of digital technology. This study investigates correspondences between values associated with two welfare technology definitions and the ideal-types of a welfare and an industrial society. The results show that the definition created by IT & Telecom Industries includes values that are similar to those of the industrial society ideal-type, while the definition created by the Swedish Auxiliary Institute includes values similar to those associated with the welfare society ideal-type. This shows a gap in value prioritization of the creators of these definitions, which leads to confusion regarding the purpose of welfare technologies.
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Copyright (c) 2022 Annika Hasselblad
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.