Where do Models of Innovation Come From? Benoit Godin, Models of Innovation

Where do Models of Innovation Come From? Benoit Godin, Models of Innovation Eric Schatzberg (bio) In Models of Innovation: The History of an Idea (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2017, pp. 344, hardcover $37), Benoît Godin, Professor of Science Studies at INRS in Montreal, has produced a thoroughly researched and carefully argued intellectual history of twentieth-century thinking about what we now term “technological innovation.” He frames his analysis around “models of innovation,” yet he goes far beyond the oft-repeated critiques of the linear model and the debates over alternatives. Instead, he uncovers the multiples sources that contributed to the rise of these models, while debunking the folk history produced by the community of scholars in STS and STI (science, technology, and innovation). Godin divides his history into three broad stages, each with a different type of model promoted by a particular set of actors. He starts with “stage” models from the early twentieth century, focusing on the evolution-diffusion controversy in anthropology. Evolutionary theorists, such as Edward Tylor and Lewis Morgan, saw the development of civilization as a series of stages. They argued that similar technologies often arose independently in different cultures. Diffusionists, in contrast, viewed humans as largely un-inventive, with inventions both social and material spreading through contact. Franz Boas was the leading anthropologist in this camp. Ultimately, invention and diffusion were reconciled, with invention and diffusion viewed as stages of a larger process. According to Godin, the invention-diffusion sequence was picked up by sociologists, most importantly William Ogburn, who wrote extensively about invention and social change. Ogburn developed a variety of explicit stage models, most of which started with the inventive idea and ended with widespread use or social effects. I think Godin reads more coherence into [End Page 337] Ogburn’s thought than is warranted, but Godin’s interpretation is not unreasonable. After WWII, rural sociologists took up the issue of diffusion of inventions. This line of thought began with Ryan and Gross’s 1943 paper on the adoption of hybrid corn among Midwestern farmers. This paper inspired a rich literature of diffusion studies among rural sociologists, culminating in Everett Rogers’s 1962 book, Diffusion of Innovations. Rogers explicitly analyzed innovation as a temporal process consisting a sequence of stages. These studies of diffusion were not exactly anticipations of the linear model, as they focused on the adoption of new technologies, not their creation. Godin next takes up the story of the linear model, explaining not only its emergence but also its persistence. He argues that this model has roots in industrial research. After WWI, supporters of industrial research presented it as a systematic alternative to the unplanned creativity of the independent inventor. One of these advocates was Maurice Holland, director of the Division of Engineering and Industrial Research in the U.S. National Research Council. In 1928, Holland proposed what he called the “research cycle,” a series of stages that described how research drove industrial progress. Holland’s sequence began not with the inventive idea, however, but with “pure science research” followed by “applied research,” then “invention,” with further stages leading to mass production. By starting his model with pure science (later called basic research), Holland provided a key element of what later became the linear model. The linear model, notes Godin, has often been attributed either to Joseph Schumpeter or Vannevar Bush. Neither claim is accurate. Godin argues that Joseph Schumpeter contributed very little to models of technological innovation, aside from a sharp distinction between invention and innovation. Similarly, Bush’s Science: The Endless Frontier was primarily a plea for funding basic science. Bush insisted that “basic research is the pacemaker of technological progress,” but he never provided any explanation for why this should be so. Rather than Bush or Schumpeter, Godin identifies the MIT economist Rupert Maclaurin as a key pioneer of the linear model. Maclaurin’s research on technological innovation began just after WWII, inspired by his work on a committee supporting the Bush report. Maclaurin also sought advice from Schumpeter, who suggested that he take a qualitative, historical approach to the topic. Maclaurin did just that, launching a research program at MIT on “The Economics of Technological Change...

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