The Linear Model of Innovation

One of the first (conceptual) frameworks developed for understanding the relation of science and technology to the economy has been the linear model of innovation. The model postulated that innovation starts with basic research, is followed by applied research and development, and ends with production and diffusion. The precise source of the model remains nebulous, having never been documented. Several authors who have used, improved, or criticized the model in the past fifty years rarely acknowledged or cited any original source. The model usually was taken for granted. According to others, however, it comes directly from V. Bush’s Science: The Endless Frontier ([1945] 1995). This article traces the history of the linear model, suggesting that it developed in three steps corresponding to three scientific communities looking at science analytically. The article argues that statistics is a main reason the model is still alive despite criticisms, alternatives, and having been proclaimed dead.

[1]  Benoît Godin,et al.  Research and development: how the ‘D’ got into R&D , 2006 .

[2]  B. Godin.  The Knowledge-Based Economy: Conceptual Framework or Buzzword? , 2006 .

[3]  Benoît Godin,et al.  The New Economy: what the concept owes to the OECD , 2004 .

[4]  Benoît Godin,et al.  The emergence of S&T indicators: why did governments supplement statistics with indicators? , 2003 .

[5]  Benoît Godin,et al.  Measuring Science: is there “Basic Research” without Statistics? , 2003 .

[6]  E. Rogers,et al.  Diffusion of innovations , 1964, Encyclopedia of Sport Management.

[7]  S. Bunk.  Teaching science graduates to think business. , 2002, Nature.

[8]  Philip Mirowski,et al.  Science Bought and Sold: Essays in the Economics of Science , 2002 .

[9]  G. Zachary,et al.  Endless Frontier: Vannevar Bush, Engineer of the American Century , 1998 .

[10]  D. E. Stokes.  Pasteur's Quadrant: Basic Science and Technological Innovation , 1997 .

[11]  C. Freeman.  The greening of technology and models of innovation , 1996 .

[12]  R. Kline.  Construing "Technology" as "Applied Science": Public Rhetoric of Scientists and Engineers in the United States, 1880-1945 , 1995, Isis.

[13]  D. Edgerton,et al.  British industrial research and development before 1945 , 1994 .

[14]  Nathan Rosenberg,et al.  Exploring the Black Box: Technology, Economics, and History , 1994 .

[15]  Kenneth Warren,et al.  R & D for Industry: A Century of Technical Innovation at Alcoa. , 1993 .

[16]  Janet F. Forrest.  Practitioners’ forum: Models of the process technological innovation , 1991 .

[17]  John K. Smith.  The Scientific Tradition in American Industrial Research , 1990 .

[18]  J. Lederberg.  The Social Function of the Scientist , 1989 .

[19]  David C. Mowery,et al.  Technology and the pursuit of economic growth: The U.S. research system before 1945 , 1989 .

[20]  J. Schopman.  Industrious Science: Semiconductor Research at the N.V. Philips' Gloeilampenfabrieken, 1930-1957 , 1988 .

[21]  D. Edgerton.  Science and Technology in British Business History , 1987 .

[22]  Michael Aaron Dennis,et al.  Accounting for Research: New Histories of Corporate Laboratories and the Social History of American Science , 1987 .

[23]  Geoffrey Lloyd,et al.  Polarity and Analogy: Two Types of Argumentation in Early Greek Thought , 1987 .

[24]  L. Reich,et al.  The Making of American Industrial Research: Science and Business at Ge and Bell, 1876-1926 , 1985 .

[25]  S. J. Kline,et al.  Innovation Is Not a Linear Process , 1985 .

[26]  Roy Rothwell,et al.  Reindustrialization and Technology , 1985 .

[27]  D. Mowery.  Firm Structure, Government Policy, and the Organization of Industrial Research: Great Britain and the United States, 1900–1950 , 1984, Business History Review.

[28]  Mike Saren,et al.  A classification and review of models of the intra-firm innovation process , 1984 .

[29]  B. Martin,et al.  Foresight in Science: Picking the Winners , 1984 .

[30]  David C. Mowery,et al.  Industrial Research and Firm Size, Survival, and Growth in American Manufacturing, 1921–1946: An Assessment , 1983, The Journal of Economic History.

[31]  D. Mowery.  Economic theory and government technology policy , 1983 .

[32]  Leonard S. Reich.  Irving Langmuir and the Pursuit of Science and Technology in the Corporate Environment , 1983 .

[33]  G. Meyer-Thurow,et al.  The Industrialization of Invention: A Case Study from the German Chemical Industry , 1982, Isis.

[34]  Patrick Kelly,et al.  Technological innovation : a critical review of current knowledge , 1981 .

[35]  George Wise,et al.  A New Role for Professional Scientists in Industry: Industrial Research at General Electric, 1900–1916 , 1980 .

[36]  T. Shinn.  The genesis of French industrial research 1880-1940 , 1980 .

[37]  D. Hounshell.  Edison and the Pure Science Ideal in 19th-Century America , 1980, Science.

[38]  Gary Werskey.  The visible college: The collective biography of British scientific socialists of the 1930's , 1979 .

[39]  R. C. Cochrane.  The National Academy of Sciences: The First Hundred Years, 1863-1963 , 1978 .

[40]  Edwin T. Layton,et al.  American Ideologies of Science and Engineering , 1976 .

[41]  James M. Utterback,et al.  A dynamic model of process and product innovation , 1975 .

[42]  C. Freeman.  Economics of Industrial Innovation , 1975 .

[43]  James M. Utterback,et al.  Innovation in Industry and the Diffusion of Technology , 1974, Science.

[44]  Nathan Reingold,et al.  Theorists and Ingenious Mechanics: Joseph Henry Defines Science , 1973 .

[45]  M. Sanderson.  Research and the Firm in British Industry, 1919-39 , 1972 .

[46]  G. C. Allen,et al.  Investment in Innovation , 1971 .

[47]  J. Bright.  Some management lessons from technological innovation research , 1969 .

[48]  W J Price,et al.  Scientific research and the innovative process. , 1969, Science.

[49]  Donald G. Marquis,et al.  Successful industrial innovations : a study of factors underlying innovation in selected firms , 1969 .

[50]  G. Daniels.  The Pure-Science Ideal and Democratic Culture , 1967, Science.

[51]  B. R. Williams.  Technology Investment and Growth , 1967 .

[52]  N. Lobkowicz.  Theory and practice: history of a concept from Aristotle to Marx , 1967 .

[53]  Jacob Schmookler,et al.  Invention and Economic Growth , 1967 .

[54]  R. Vernon.  International investment and international trade in the product cycle , 1966 .

[55]  Anne P. Carter,et al.  The Economics of Technological Change , 1966 .

[56]  J. Cockcroft.  The process of technological innovation , 1965 .

[57]  D. Price.  Is Technology Historically Independent of Science? A Study in Statistical Historiography , 1965 .

[58]  Frederic M. Scherer,et al.  Invention and Innovation in the Watt-Boulton Steam-Engine Venture , 1965 .

[59]  D. Jorgenson.  The Rate and Direction of Inventive Activity. , 1963 .

[60]  E. Mansfield,et al.  The Production and Distribution of Knowledge in the United States. , 1963 .

[61]  Simon Kuznets,et al.  Inventive Activity: Problems of Definition and Measurement , 1962 .

[62]  Vernon W. Ruttan,et al.  Usher and Schumpeter on Invention, Innovation, and Technological Change , 1959 .

[63]  R. Nelson.  The Simple Economics of Basic Scientific Research , 1959, Journal of Political Economy.

[64]  Leonard Carmichael,et al.  The Human Condition , 1960 .

[65]  C. Carter,et al.  Industry and technical progress , 1957 .

[66]  Charles Frederick Carter,et al.  Book Reviews: Industry and Technical Progress. Factors Governing the Speed of Application of Science , 1957 .

[67]  Joseph L. Fisher,et al.  Federal Funds for Science , 1956 .

[68]  D. C. Dearborn.  SPENDING FOR INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH, 1951-1952 , 1953 .

[69]  R. Anthony,et al.  Management Controls in Industrial Research Organizations. , 1953 .

[70]  W. Rupert Maclaurin,et al.  The Sequence from Invention to Innovation and Its Relation to Economic Growth , 1953 .

[71]  C. Solo,et al.  Innovation in the Capitalist Process: A Critique of the Schumpeterian Theory , 1951 .

[72]  William Rupert Maclaurin,et al.  Invention and Innovation in the Radio Industry , 1950 .

[73]  G. Briefs.  Business cycles , 1949 .

[74]  C. C. Furnas,et al.  Research in Industry, Its Organization and Management , 1948 .

[75]  Lyman Bryson.  Science and freedom , 1947 .

[76]  FEDERAL SUPPORT OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH. , 1945, Science.

[77]  J. Schumpeter,et al.  Business Cycles: A Theoretical, Historical, and Statistical Analysis of the Capitalist Process , 1940 .

[78]  J. D. Bernal,et al.  The Social Function of Science , 1967 .

[79]  W. Ogburn,et al.  TECHNOLOGICAL TRENDS AND NATIONAL POLICY. , 1937, Science.

[80]  J. Huxley,et al.  Scientific research and social needs , 1934 .

[81]  J. Schumpeter.  The Theory of Economic Development: An Inquiry into Profits, Capital, Credit, Interest, and the Business Cycle , 1934 .

[82]  Thomas M. Smith,et al.  A History of Mechanical Inventions , 1961, Nature.

[83]  C. E. Mees.  The Organisation of Industrial Scientific Research , 2010, Nature.

[84]  J. Carty.  The relation of pure science to industrial research , 1916, Proceedings of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers.

[85]  J. J. Carty.  The Relation of Pure Science to Industrial Research , 1916, Transactions of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers.

[86]  R. T. G..  The Physical Papers of Henry Augustus Rowland , 1903, Nature.

[87]  H. Rowland.  A Plea for Pure Science , 1883, Nature.