The Rise of Innovation

The idea of innovation, as both a process and a result, as an economic driver, and-at least in the United States-as a source of national identity, has become so pervasive that some have found it a source of discomfort (see my Resources column in the January 2015 issue for a discussion of the debate around disruption and its uses). Schumpeter differentiated between invention and innovation and connected innovation to the "creative destruction" he saw as driving economic growth. The young nation first began to flex its muscle in science and technology in the era after the Civil War-see Thomas Hughes's interesting and insightful history-but at least until the First World War, attention focused not on innovation, but invention. The National Research Council was created in 1918 as "a way of mobilizing American scientists to help solve the military's scientific and technical problems." According to RADMA, the first publications about R&D management appeared in the 1920s, and the field gained momentum after the Second World War, with research into production and new-product development processes as well as the impact of R&D and corporate research. (The RADMA page has a long list of references, for those interested in the evolution of the field, and offers other substantive discussions elsewhere on its website.) The resources released by the end of the Second World War-in terms of funding, corporate capacity, and new technologies invented for war that could be turned to commercial uses- spurred decades of economic growth in the United States, and a...