Andrew McMeekin

Technological trajectories and R&D for environmental innovation in UK firms

Abstract This article reports results of a 1993 questionnaire survey of how UK companies have been innovating technologically in response to environmental pressures. The survey sought to identify factors stimulating UK firms to innovate more environmentally friendly products and processes, and to investigate the changes in R&D activity they have undertaken to facilitate such innovation. In devising the questionnaire and interpreting the results, we have been strongly influenced by the theoretical frameworks developed over the past 15 years which describe technological developments in terms of ‘selection environments’ and ‘technological trajectories’. Useful though such frameworks are, we conclude that they need to be supplemented by concepts derived from the sociology of technology and from studies of corporate strategies.

Sustainability transitions and final consumption: Practices and socio-technical systems

This article examines the significance of final consumption processes for understandings of prospective transitions towards more sustainable societies. It argues that most existing conceptualisations either place too much emphasis on technology or on ‘consumer behaviour’, ignoring the deeply intertwined relationships between the two. After briefly reviewing recent contributions to the technology-oriented multi-level perspective (MLP) and to social scientific explanations of ‘behavioural change’, we outline a practice-based approach to understanding final consumption and sustainability. Practice-based approaches reveal processes of reproduction (stasis) and change in forms of consumption, which we argue present conceptual insights into sustainability transitions. By examining the tensions and crossovers between the MLP and practice-based approaches to consumption, three specific forms of interaction are identified for further conceptual and empirical exploration: the social relations of consumption; co-dependent changes in production and consumption; and, technologies, practices and consumption.

Qualities of Food

In this book, the complexity and the significance of the foods we eat are analysed from a variety of perspectives, by sociologists, economists, geographers and anthropologists. Chapters address a number of intriguing questions: how do people make judgments about taste? How do such judgments come to be shared by groups of people?; What social and organisational processes result in foods being certified as of decent or proper quality? How has dissatisfaction with the food system been expressed? What alternatives are thought to be possible? The multi-disciplinary analysis of this book explores many different answers to such questions. The first part of the book focuses on theoretical and conceptual issues, the second part considers processes of formal and informal regulation, while the third part examines social and political responses to industrialised food production and mass consumption. Qualities of food will be of interest to researchers and students in all the social science disciplines that are concerned with food, whether marketing, sociology, cultural studies, anthropology, human nutrition or economics.

Eco-innovation systems and problem sequences: the contrasting cases of US and Brazilian biofuels

This paper discusses the re-emergence of biofuel innovation systems in the USA and Brazil. We develop a view of eco-innovation systems as emerging and evolving to solve ecological problems. We then consider the role of the State as a core actor in the mobilization of innovation systems and discuss how specific institutional arrangements, political contexts and technological competencies influence how problems are framed. We argue that the way ecological problems are framed and articulated has a significant impact on the direction and momentum of system evolution. Finally, we draw attention to the dynamic and evolving characteristics of eco-innovation systems that result from recurrent re-specifications of the problem in focus, as partial solutions emerge and as the political and economic dimensions are reframed.

Toward the development of benchmarking tools for R&D project management

This paper presents an audit model for the process of R&D project management that can be used to check the robustness and repeatability of processes and provide a template for internal and external benchmarking. The intention is to offer a ‘fine-grained’ model focusing rather closely on the R&D activities within the broader innovation process, thus complementing the more widely based innovation audit models that already exist. Based on field-work in six business units in ICI and five companies from other industries, the paper sets out three major variants of the R&D project management process. These variants reflect the fact that R&D projects take place in different circumstances and have different objectives.

Diffusion with distinction: The diffusion of household durables in the UK

Abstract Futures researchers have long been interested in studies that investigate the diffusion of innovations among consumers. Often this is simply as a basis for extrapolating future trends in access to technologies. But also this literature has been particularly useful in providing frameworks for understanding the processes by which new commodities come into circulation and spread across populations of adopters. In this paper we seek to deepen the analysis. We argue that many studies have oversimplified the issues by treating populations of potential adopters as being homogeneous. This, we believe, is inadequate for understanding the diffusion of products in consumer markets. Drawing on debates from cultural studies and the sociology of consumption, as well as emerging theories from evolutionary economics, and analysing household survey data, we show that there are discernible social groups that adopt products at different rates. These differential rates of adoption are attributable to the existence of groups with different tastes, and not simply a question of different income groups.

Brazilian Genomics and Bioinformatics: instituting new innovation pathways in a global context

Abstract The paper raises issues of analysis and policy for science and technology in developing countries within the global context of the post-genomic era. Based on a case study of a newly created Brazilian research and technology capability, it argues for an understanding of variety creation, where new organizational forms often transgress established scientific and organizational boundaries and arrangements. In particular, new frontiers of science and technology can be opened up by the alternative trajectories generated by differences in socio-economic, institutional and ecological conditions in ways that thereby reinforce those very differences. It stresses the inherent unevenness and heterogeneity of innovation processes. By focusing on the geopolitical significance of diverse pathways of science and innovation, the approach suggests an alternative vision to catch-up models of innovation and development in terms of variety creation.

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT AND THE MOTIVATION OF TECHNICAL PROFESSIONALS

This paper examines the links between human resource management (HRM) and the motivation of technical professionals located in R&D (research and development) functions. This issue is addressed through case studies of four large technology-based firms. Interviews were conducted with human resource managers, line managers and technical professionals. The various HRM practices identified in the case studies are analysed with respect to their impact on the motivation of technical professionals. In particular, the research reveals that there is confusion between appraisal and performance management, and that explicit career management procedures are poorly deployed.

Public-private collaborations and the race to sequence Agrobacterium tumefaciens

The article presents various issues related to the public-private collaborations and the race to sequence Agrobacterium tumefaciens. The article is divided into three parts: the first explores the emergence of two separate public-private collaborations following the failure or absence of either purely public or private initiatives; the second describes and analyzes the race itself and the dynamics of competition in the context of different types of intellectual property rights; and the final section discusses the implications of the mutual dependency and asymmetry of interactions between public and private sectors in knowledge creation.

The entanglement of consumer expectations and (eco) innovation sequences: the case of orange juice

Prospects for future innovation to reduce the carbon intensity of everyday consumer products rest significantly on the path dependent processes that have caused current products with their associated modes of provision and practices of consumption to be as they are. We use the history of orange juice to examine the dynamics of innovation sequences that have emerged to solve a series of ‘problems’ associated with the production and consumption of orange juice, the latest being the carbon problem. In particular, we focus on the interdependencies between consumer expectations of what constitutes ‘good orange juice’, changes in the product itself and in the system through which it is provisioned. We conclude with a discussion of how historical, path dependent processes lead to alternative framings of the new problem to be solved and different strategies for pursuing innovative solutions.