Science and Corporate Strategy: Du Pont and R&D, 1902–1980 by David A. Hounshell, John Kenly Smith, Jr

Abstract

338 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE and linear motors. In a segment suggestive of Thomas Kuhn’s model applied to engineering, he considers the activities of “clean-up men” who follow pioneers into new areas “exploring every corner of it, classifying it, making it fit existing knowledge” (p. 113). In the final chapters, Laithwaite treats the “second age of topology” that began with the concept of transverse flux motors for use in high-speed transportation in 1969. Much of this segment deals with developmental activities at Tracked Hovercraft Limited, a British firm organized in 1967. During the project phase, the author and his colleagues introduced the “magnetic river” technique that combined levitation and propulsion. However, soon after a public demonstra­ tion of this system in May 1972, the British government decided to stop funding the project. The author argues that it was “political manoeuvring” rather than technological constraints that served to “play havoc” with transportation applications of linear motors after 1973 (p. 166). The book includes a fifty-page bibliography on linear motors and related topics. A History of Linear Electric Motors should be of interest to many historians of technology as well as scholars in technology policy. James E. Brittain Dr. Brittain (caches the history of technology at the Georgia Institute of Technol­ ogy ancl is chairman of the IEEE History Committee. Science and Corporate Strategy: DuPont and RLH), 1902— 1980. By David A. Hounshell and John Kenly Smith, Jr. New York: Cam­ bridge University Press, 1988. Pp. xx + 756; illustrations, tables, notes, bibliography, index. $39.50. In 1905, three years after Du Pont established its first R&D laboratory, the explosives manufacturer had sales of $27.7 million; by 1980 the diversified chemical giant showed sales of $13,652 million. What role did research and development play in the re­ markable transformation of Du Pont in three-quarters of a cen­ tury? That is the basic question David Hounshell and John Smith set for themselves. The authors began with a number of advantages. Hounshell is an experienced student of the history of American technology. Du Pont cooperated completely in the project and gave the authors total access to their rich corporate records, which were supplemented with oral interviews. Just as important, Alfred Chandler’s work on American corporations, including Du Pont, provided a conceptual framework for the book. The result is a study that focuses on the way Du Pont used R&D to pursue corporate objectives and is particularly illumi­ nating because of the various roles R&D played in the numerous transformations of a major corporation. TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 339 The book is organized into five major sections, each dealing with a chronological period and also developing a major theme characteris­ tic of that period. Part 1 deals with the “experimental years” 1902—21. During this time Du Pont organized and received the first benefits from corporate R&D. These years also saw the crucial corporate decisions to diversify and decentralize, decisions that had important implications for the conduct of R&D. Part 2 explores the creation of a diversified chemical company in the 1920s and 1930s. Part 3 recounts the development of nylon and neoprene in the 1930s that later offered corporate leadership the vision of a potential endless flow of profitable new products generated internally by Du Pont researchers. Part 4 deals with World War II and the subsequent two decades, when prewar research became a money machine as the exploitation of nylon, Orion, and Dacron made the Textile Fibers Department the largest and most profitable part of Du Pont. At the same time, Central Research turned its attention increasingly to fundamental research and more and more took on the character of a university or a research institute. Corporate strategy focused on the confident search for “new nylons,” that is, new products that in the last quarter of the century would do for Du Pont what nylon and other textile fibers had done in the 1950s. But in part 5 the authors note corporate disappointment with this strategy and the reorientation of R&D in the 1970s toward the life sciences. This is superb institutional history, ranging from “pure” science in Central Research in the 1960s to applications research in close cooperation with Du Pont customers...