Corporate Research Laboratories and the History of Innovation

Corporate Research Laboratories and the History of Innovation

Author: David M. Pithan

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-07-15

Total Pages: 181

ISBN-13: 1000410307

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With the beginning of the twentieth century, American corporations in the chemical and electrical industries began establishing industrial research laboratories. Some went on to become world-famous not only for their scientific and technological breakthroughs but also for the new union of science and industry they represented. Innovative ideas do not simply appear out of the blue and spread on their own merit. Rather, the laboratory's diffusion takes place in a cultural context that goes beyond corporate capital and technological change. Using discourse analysis as a method to comprehensively capture the organizational field of the early American R&D laboratories from 1870 to 1930, this book uncovers the collective meanings associated with the industrial laboratory. Meanings such as what and where a laboratory is supposed to be, who the scientist is, and what it means to practice science provided cultural resources that made the transfer of the laboratory from academic science into an industrial setting possible by rendering such meanings understandable and operable to big business and organizational entrepreneurs fighting for hegemony in a rapidly evolving market. It analyzes not only the corporations that established laboratories in the United States but also their contexts – economic, political, and especially scientific – showing how "the industrial laboratory" was transformed from an organizational novelty into an expected institution in less than two decades. This book will be of interest to researchers, academics, historians, and students in the fields of organizational change, discourse studies, the management of technology and innovation, as well as business and management history.


The Idea Factory

The Idea Factory

Author: Jon Gertner

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2012-03-15

Total Pages: 434

ISBN-13: 1101561084

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The definitive history of America’s greatest incubator of innovation and the birthplace of some of the 20th century’s most influential technologies “Filled with colorful characters and inspiring lessons . . . The Idea Factory explores one of the most critical issues of our time: What causes innovation?” —Walter Isaacson, The New York Times Book Review “Compelling . . . Gertner's book offers fascinating evidence for those seeking to understand how a society should best invest its research resources.” —The Wall Street Journal From its beginnings in the 1920s until its demise in the 1980s, Bell Labs-officially, the research and development wing of AT&T-was the biggest, and arguably the best, laboratory for new ideas in the world. From the transistor to the laser, from digital communications to cellular telephony, it's hard to find an aspect of modern life that hasn't been touched by Bell Labs. In The Idea Factory, Jon Gertner traces the origins of some of the twentieth century's most important inventions and delivers a riveting and heretofore untold chapter of American history. At its heart this is a story about the life and work of a small group of brilliant and eccentric men-Mervin Kelly, Bill Shockley, Claude Shannon, John Pierce, and Bill Baker-who spent their careers at Bell Labs. Today, when the drive to invent has become a mantra, Bell Labs offers us a way to enrich our understanding of the challenges and solutions to technological innovation. Here, after all, was where the foundational ideas on the management of innovation were born.


A Century of Innovation

A Century of Innovation

Author: 3M Company

Publisher: 3m Company

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13:

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A compilation of 3M voices, memories, facts and experiences from the company's first 100 years.


The Dawn of Innovation

The Dawn of Innovation

Author: Charles R. Morris

Publisher:

Published: 2012-10-23

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 1586488287

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From the bestselling author of The Trillion Dollar Meltdown and The Tycoons comes the fascinating, panoramic story of the rise of American industry between the War of 1812 and the Civil War


Edison and the Business of Innovation

Edison and the Business of Innovation

Author: André Millard

Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press

Published: 1993-08-01

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780801847301

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This is the story of the "other" Thomas Edison—not the heroic lone inventor, but Edison the businessman, industrialist, and successful manager of one of the world's largest industrial research laboratories. Tracing his career from his boyhood to his death in 1931, Edison and the Business of Innovation reveals Edison to be an entrepreneur of extraordinary vision. From extensive research in the Edison archives at West Orange, New Jersey, Andre Millard presents new information about Edison the businessman and provides new interpretations of old issues.


The Sound of Innovation

The Sound of Innovation

Author: Andrew J. Nelson

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2015-03-06

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 026202876X

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How a team of musicians, engineers, computer scientists, and psychologists developed computer music as an academic field and ushered in the era of digital music. In the 1960s, a team of Stanford musicians, engineers, computer scientists, and psychologists used computing in an entirely novel way: to produce and manipulate sound and create the sonic basis of new musical compositions. This group of interdisciplinary researchers at the nascent Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA, pronounced “karma”) helped to develop computer music as an academic field, invent the technologies that underlie it, and usher in the age of digital music. In The Sound of Innovation, Andrew Nelson chronicles the history of CCRMA, tracing its origins in Stanford's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory through its present-day influence on Silicon Valley and digital music groups worldwide. Nelson emphasizes CCRMA's interdisciplinarity, which stimulates creativity at the intersections of fields; its commitment to open sharing and users; and its pioneering commercial engagement. He shows that Stanford's outsized influence on the emergence of digital music came from the intertwining of these three modes, which brought together diverse supporters with different aims around a field of shared interest. Nelson thus challenges long-standing assumptions about the divisions between art and science, between the humanities and technology, and between academic research and commercial applications, showing how the story of a small group of musicians reveals substantial insights about innovation. Nelson draws on extensive archival research and dozens of interviews with digital music pioneers; the book's website provides access to original historic documents and other material.


Innovation: A Very Short Introduction

Innovation: A Very Short Introduction

Author: Mark Dodgson

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2010-03-25

Total Pages: 163

ISBN-13: 0199568901

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This book demonstrates how innovation is used to create wealth, productivity growth, and improved quality of life


Innovating in the Open Lab

Innovating in the Open Lab

Author: Albrecht Fritzsche

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2020-05-05

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13: 3110633663

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Open labs provide spaces for interaction across organizational boundaries. They create a huge potential to advance innovation processes. Making use of this potential, however, is not an easy task. It requires diligence, sophistication and perseverance from everyone involved in the implementation and the management of the lab. This book brings together contributions from leading experts in engineering, design, strategy, foresight and marketing research as well as policy makers and practitioners from an open lab. It explores from different perspectives how open labs can be used to facilitate innovation and what needs to be done to make the operation of an open lab successful. The topics addressed in the book include: interaction patterns and mediation in open labs, innovation technology, resource management, ecosystem and platform design, cultural translation, productivity, multi-channel communication, and more. The first part of the book is dedicated to the study of JOSEPHS®, an open lab in Germany. It gives insight in the practical challenges of running an open lab and its role in the local business ecosystem. The other parts of the book discuss the phenomenon of open labs in general and its significance in different contexts all around the world.


The Architecture of Innovation

The Architecture of Innovation

Author: Joshua Lerner

Publisher: Harvard Business Press

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 1422143635

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In 'The Architecture of Innovation', Josh Lerner explores what lies behind successful innovation, and what managers and companies can learn from successful and unsuccessful cases. He combines both analysis of in-house innovation in corporate research labs with finance-based venture capital investment in innovation.


The Social Labs Revolution

The Social Labs Revolution

Author: Zaid Hassan

Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers

Published: 2014-02-03

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 1626560757

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Current responses to our most pressing societal challenges—from poverty to ethnic conflict to climate change—are not working. These problems are incredibly dynamic and complex, involving an ever-shifting array of factors, actors, and circumstances. They demand a highly fluid and adaptive approach, yet we address them by devising fixed, long-term plans. Social labs, says Zaid Hassan, are a dramatically more effective response. Social labs bring together a diverse a group of stakeholders—not to create yet another five-year plan but to develop a portfolio of prototype solutions, test those solutions in the real world, use the data to further refine them, and test them again. Hassan builds on a decade of experience—as well as drawing from cutting-edge research in complexity science, networking theory, and sociology—to explain the core principles and daily functioning of social labs, using examples of pioneering labs from around the world. He offers a new generation of problem solvers an effective, practical, and exciting new vision and guide.