Scientists as free riders: Strategies for managing innovation in the Dutch East India Company

Abstract

As the Dutch East India Company expanded its presence in Asia during the seventeenth century, discovery of new products and medical materials was central to its continued success and survival. This new product innovation was difficult to manage directly however because the routine- driven, efficiency-focused organization was ill-suited to research and discovery required for bioprospecting and innovation. Instead, the Company tacitly allowed its employees in Asia to conduct this research on their own. Scientists became free riders, exploiting their administrative authority and corporate resources to further their private research projects. This symbiotic public-private partnership enabled employees to use Company resources to undertake large-scale economic and scientific surveys of its Asian domains. These decentralized, entrepreneurial projects cut across the boundaries of caste, language, religion and theoretical orientation to assemble a new, systematic view of Asian knowledge. While not centrally planned (nor always officially condoned) these surveying efforts had all of the hallmarks a systematic colonial project to map out the sources of value in a foreign colony, and demonstrate the ways in which Dutch commercial ventures expanded their missions as they solidified their control in Asia.