Technology’s Theorists: Conceptions of Innovation in Relation to Science and Technology Policy

Abstract

Technology’s Theorists: Conceptions of Innovation in Relation to Science and Technology Policy ANDREW JAMISON Definitions and Distinctions For something that is widely considered to be of crucial, even strategic, importance, it is remarkable that there is so little agreement as to what is meant by technological innovation. And it is certainly not my intention in this article to give an answer that can satisfy everyone. My aim, rather, is to provide a kind of historical handle on the contemporary discussions of innovation and innovation policy, to attempt to place contemporary ideas in a longer time perspective. Technology’s theorists, as we shall see, have come to their subject from different social positions and from different intellectual tradi­ tions, and there has been a fundamental tension between narrow and broad conceptions of technological innovation. Many theorists have been under the influence of what might be called a commercial bias according to which innovation has come to mean the creation of new marketable commodities. They subscribe to a narrow definition derived from a terminological distinction between invention and innovation, the first being the making of something new, the second being the successful launching of that new something in the market­ place. As opposed to the narrow, commercial definition, there has emerged in recent years the broader notion of an innovation process as a wide-ranging and multifaceted social activity. Included in its pur­ view is the entire continuum, or chain, of scientific research and technological development from the most basic laboratory investiga­ tions to the marketing of new products, not forgetting all the Dr. Jamison is associate professor and director of the graduate program in science and technology policy at the Research Policy Institute, University of I.und. Currently he is involved in research on the relations between social movements and science and on the cultural dimension of science and technology policy. He thanks Aant Elzinga, Erik Baark, and Anders Granberg for comments on earlier versions of this article; one such version was published in Atul Wad, eel., Science, Technology ancl Development (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1988).©1989 bv the Society for the History of Technology. All rights reserved. 0040-165X/89/3003-0002J01.00 505 506 Andrew Jamison organizational or social innovations in between. One of the ambitions of this article will be to recount the tension between these broad and narrow conceptions. Because of limitations of space (and competence), I will not attempt to analyze the various theories in any detail; my aim will be to locate them in their historical contexts. More specifically, I will attempt to place some of the most influential theories of technological innovation in relation to science and technology policy. I want to indicate how new policy directions and emphases condition the academic discourse (s) on technological innovation and how that discourse, in turn, informs the doctrines of science and technology policy. In an article of this length, such interactions can merely be suggested rather than firmly established. Since policy-making and academic theories of innovation are so seldom linked to one another, however, I think it is of some importance to begin to draw connections between them, even in an admittedly preliminary way. It has become customary in discussions of postwar science and technology policy to refer to phases, or stages, in which the central focus and organizational emphasis of policy have shifted direction.' It is my contention that, in each phase, there has also been a character­ istic tone in the academic conceptualization of innovation. The precise relation has, as we shall see, varied in intensity and in kind, but generally there has been a strong interdependence. As I review the phases and the corresponding theorizing over scientific and techno­ logical innovation, I will attempt to indicate how both the policy and academic discourses can be seen as responses to changes in scientific/ technological practice—that is, to the way in which scientific research and technological development are actually carried out. Theory and policy, I will suggest, have “chased” practice. Before surveying this recent history, however, I will examine the field’s prehistory, for our contemporary conceptions of technological innovation have not grown out of nothing; indeed, they can be seen as...