- Email: [email protected]
Innovation: A cross-disciplinary perspective
116
Book reviews
on transactions costs” but rather as an efficient productive unit which is best able to mobilise resources in ways consistent with the needs of modern technology and the values and aspirations of the people who work in it. Chapter 10 explores the role of expectations in the future of economic systems dealing particularly with Keynes but also (critically) with the rational expectations and Austrian Schools. Finally, chapter 11 discusses more directly the policy implications of the preceding arguments. This is a book of impressive scholarship. Not only has Hodgson done a thorough critical job on his chosen themes, he has also read and digested widely outside of his own discipline and presents his overall argument in a very convincing way. However, I have two broad criticisms to make. The first is his failure really to come to grips with why the economics profession behaves in such an extraordinary way, i.e. painting itself into highly unlikely intellectual comers. Surely there must be some rationale for what appears on the surface to be a form of collective madness? On this the author is curiously muted. At various points he alludes to a “New Right” ideological factor, at others to the unduly mechanistic and anti-systematic character of modern economics. But there is no systematic attempt to analyse precisely how these factors operate so as to give the economics profession such impressive inertia. Indeed at times, (e.g. with respect to the “impurity principle” which encapsulates deviation from some pre-existent ideal state, the book seems to betray a lurking fascination with the neo-classical metaphysic. My own view (see N. Clark and C. Juma, Long-Run Economics (Pinter, London, 1987)) is that what ultimately drives the current neo-classical paradigm is a deep desire to emulate the success of nineteenth century classical physics. Only a rigid cognitive commitment of this kind could possibly explain the extraordinary lengths gone to preserve theoretical integrity and to deny the complexity of the world around us. My second major criticism is that practically nothing is said about how economic systems move through time, i.e. with what production is and how it is constantly changing as a result of innovation and technical change. For if economic relations are a process (and at various points Hodgson emphasises this point in the book) then surely it is necessary to understand how such a
process works? However, in his chapter on the firm (chapter 9) he spends most of his time criticising (albeit lucidly and trenchantly) the view that firms exist purely to economise on transactions costs. This is all very well but the major problem with production economics is its habit of consigning technology to an exogenous role in theory, and really very little is said about this crucial aspect. These points aside, this book is an excellent read. Written with great care, refreshing intellectual honesty and with a wide canvas of the relevant literature it should be on the “essential” reading lists of all final year and post-graduate economics students. It will also be of great interest to students of the other social sciences who would like a point of entry to the inner mysteries of the faith. Norman Clark Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex
Kjell Gronhaug and Geir Kaufmann, Innovation: A Cross-Disciplinary Perspective (Norwegian University Press, Oslo, 1988) pp. 529. This volume is an edited collection of twentyone chapters on various aspects of innovation. Some of the contributors, such as von Hippel, Rogers, Maidique, and Stinchcombe will be familiar names to readers of this journal. The chapters are divided into three broad sections. In the first section (“Creativity and Innovation”) there are eight chapters (totalling some 250 pages), whose predominant focus is on the role of the individual in innovation. This material is perhaps the most distant in content and style from the normal concerns of readers of this journal. The majority of the contributions are firmly based in the discipline of psychology, either the occupational or organisational variety. Thus innovation is seen as a special instance of the more general human behaviour of “problem-solving”, which is influenced both by individual differences in attributes and skills, and by organisational context. Readers unfamiliar with this approach to innovation will find the chapters a useful compendium which offer a guide to, and assessment of, such matters as the Kirton “InnovatorAdapter” scale; the techniques of brainstorming
Book reviews
and other aids to creative problem solving; and a number of case-studies of the use of these principles. As might be expected in a collection of this type, the individual chapters (some of which have been published elsewhere) do not offer much reflection on the overall intellectual location of psychological analyses of innovation in a broader framework. Given the title of the volume it is disappointing that the editors’ introduction does not offer much as a counter to this shortfall, simply stating that the three parts of the book deal with innovation at the three “levels” of individual, organisation, and society. A further six chapters are grouped together under the rubric “Management, Organisation and Innovation”. However, two of these papers again focus on the roles of individuals, and a third paper is concerned with a generalised notion of “administrative innovation”. Of the remaining three one deals with corporate venturing and a second with entrepreneurship. Readers expecting a large collection of material in the tradition of studies of the organisation of research and development and other aspects of technical change will therefore be disappointed. This is not to say that the material is uninteresting: indeed Burgelman’s contribution is one of the few attempted semi-ethnographic studies of innovation to be published anywhere and is valuable for this reason alone. As with the first part of the book however, this part suffers from having no sustained attempt, either by contributors or editors, to address the overall contribution of the sub-discipline of organisation studies to the analysis of innovation.
117
The final section of the book is titled “Knowledge Innovation and Growth”. This section is closest in content to the concerns of this journal. Von Hippel’s work on the role of users in innovation is represented in one chapter. There are further chapters by Maidique and Zirger on “The New Product Learning Cycle”, by Mechlin and Berg on “Evaluating Research”, by Hope on “Market Structure and Innovation”, by Basberg on “Patents and the Measurement of Technological Change”, and by Rogers on universities and high-tech spin-off companies. All of these contributions are useful. However, for a section with the ambitious title of “Knowledge, Innovation and Growth” there is only modest attention paid to the issue of growth, and no real engagement with the substantial literature on technical change and growth which has been such a preoccupation of the study of technical change over the years. In summary then, this book is a thorough guide to a specific type of literature on innovation which starts from “the innovating individual” and works out to the organisational context. But it is in no sense a proper representation of the literatures on innovation which economists, political scientists or sociologists would regard as standard. Read in that light, the book is a useful but unbalanced collection.
Rod Coombs School of Management, UMIST
Book reviews
on transactions costs” but rather as an efficient productive unit which is best able to mobilise resources in ways consistent with the needs of modern technology and the values and aspirations of the people who work in it. Chapter 10 explores the role of expectations in the future of economic systems dealing particularly with Keynes but also (critically) with the rational expectations and Austrian Schools. Finally, chapter 11 discusses more directly the policy implications of the preceding arguments. This is a book of impressive scholarship. Not only has Hodgson done a thorough critical job on his chosen themes, he has also read and digested widely outside of his own discipline and presents his overall argument in a very convincing way. However, I have two broad criticisms to make. The first is his failure really to come to grips with why the economics profession behaves in such an extraordinary way, i.e. painting itself into highly unlikely intellectual comers. Surely there must be some rationale for what appears on the surface to be a form of collective madness? On this the author is curiously muted. At various points he alludes to a “New Right” ideological factor, at others to the unduly mechanistic and anti-systematic character of modern economics. But there is no systematic attempt to analyse precisely how these factors operate so as to give the economics profession such impressive inertia. Indeed at times, (e.g. with respect to the “impurity principle” which encapsulates deviation from some pre-existent ideal state, the book seems to betray a lurking fascination with the neo-classical metaphysic. My own view (see N. Clark and C. Juma, Long-Run Economics (Pinter, London, 1987)) is that what ultimately drives the current neo-classical paradigm is a deep desire to emulate the success of nineteenth century classical physics. Only a rigid cognitive commitment of this kind could possibly explain the extraordinary lengths gone to preserve theoretical integrity and to deny the complexity of the world around us. My second major criticism is that practically nothing is said about how economic systems move through time, i.e. with what production is and how it is constantly changing as a result of innovation and technical change. For if economic relations are a process (and at various points Hodgson emphasises this point in the book) then surely it is necessary to understand how such a
process works? However, in his chapter on the firm (chapter 9) he spends most of his time criticising (albeit lucidly and trenchantly) the view that firms exist purely to economise on transactions costs. This is all very well but the major problem with production economics is its habit of consigning technology to an exogenous role in theory, and really very little is said about this crucial aspect. These points aside, this book is an excellent read. Written with great care, refreshing intellectual honesty and with a wide canvas of the relevant literature it should be on the “essential” reading lists of all final year and post-graduate economics students. It will also be of great interest to students of the other social sciences who would like a point of entry to the inner mysteries of the faith. Norman Clark Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex
Kjell Gronhaug and Geir Kaufmann, Innovation: A Cross-Disciplinary Perspective (Norwegian University Press, Oslo, 1988) pp. 529. This volume is an edited collection of twentyone chapters on various aspects of innovation. Some of the contributors, such as von Hippel, Rogers, Maidique, and Stinchcombe will be familiar names to readers of this journal. The chapters are divided into three broad sections. In the first section (“Creativity and Innovation”) there are eight chapters (totalling some 250 pages), whose predominant focus is on the role of the individual in innovation. This material is perhaps the most distant in content and style from the normal concerns of readers of this journal. The majority of the contributions are firmly based in the discipline of psychology, either the occupational or organisational variety. Thus innovation is seen as a special instance of the more general human behaviour of “problem-solving”, which is influenced both by individual differences in attributes and skills, and by organisational context. Readers unfamiliar with this approach to innovation will find the chapters a useful compendium which offer a guide to, and assessment of, such matters as the Kirton “InnovatorAdapter” scale; the techniques of brainstorming
Book reviews
and other aids to creative problem solving; and a number of case-studies of the use of these principles. As might be expected in a collection of this type, the individual chapters (some of which have been published elsewhere) do not offer much reflection on the overall intellectual location of psychological analyses of innovation in a broader framework. Given the title of the volume it is disappointing that the editors’ introduction does not offer much as a counter to this shortfall, simply stating that the three parts of the book deal with innovation at the three “levels” of individual, organisation, and society. A further six chapters are grouped together under the rubric “Management, Organisation and Innovation”. However, two of these papers again focus on the roles of individuals, and a third paper is concerned with a generalised notion of “administrative innovation”. Of the remaining three one deals with corporate venturing and a second with entrepreneurship. Readers expecting a large collection of material in the tradition of studies of the organisation of research and development and other aspects of technical change will therefore be disappointed. This is not to say that the material is uninteresting: indeed Burgelman’s contribution is one of the few attempted semi-ethnographic studies of innovation to be published anywhere and is valuable for this reason alone. As with the first part of the book however, this part suffers from having no sustained attempt, either by contributors or editors, to address the overall contribution of the sub-discipline of organisation studies to the analysis of innovation.
117
The final section of the book is titled “Knowledge Innovation and Growth”. This section is closest in content to the concerns of this journal. Von Hippel’s work on the role of users in innovation is represented in one chapter. There are further chapters by Maidique and Zirger on “The New Product Learning Cycle”, by Mechlin and Berg on “Evaluating Research”, by Hope on “Market Structure and Innovation”, by Basberg on “Patents and the Measurement of Technological Change”, and by Rogers on universities and high-tech spin-off companies. All of these contributions are useful. However, for a section with the ambitious title of “Knowledge, Innovation and Growth” there is only modest attention paid to the issue of growth, and no real engagement with the substantial literature on technical change and growth which has been such a preoccupation of the study of technical change over the years. In summary then, this book is a thorough guide to a specific type of literature on innovation which starts from “the innovating individual” and works out to the organisational context. But it is in no sense a proper representation of the literatures on innovation which economists, political scientists or sociologists would regard as standard. Read in that light, the book is a useful but unbalanced collection.
Rod Coombs School of Management, UMIST