From telegraphs to telephones: Tracing the socio-technical transition in Canadian telecommunications from 1846 to 1980

This paper examines how multiple forces, embracing technological, political, business and social circumstances, shaped the Canadian transition from the telegraph to telephone. Building on political economy and social construction of technology interpretations, we use a socio-technical transitions approach to show how technology suppliers, public policy, the telegraph industry, the telephone industry, other adjacent industries and users interacted in a dynamic process that led to the shift from telegraphs to telephones. The paper contributes to business history by offering a novel research approach that combines archival-based, narrative history methods with multi-level perspective-informed, transition analysis of the various dimensions of socio-technical system change. It bridges political economy and social construction examinations to show the genesis and growth of both telegraph and telephone industries, revealing how each industry influenced and co-evolved with the other through partnership as well as competition and conflict.