In Search of Useful Theory of
Innovation
By Richard R. Nelson and Sydney G. Winter
발표자: 이기영, 한혜나
Introduction
Role of Policy
Role of Theory
most important policy issues involve
finding ways to make the currently lagging
sectors more progressive, if in fact that
can be done.
must organize knowledge and guide
research regarding what lies behind the
uneven performance
of the different economic sectors.
기존 이론이 가진 문제점
1. 혁신에 관한 knowledge와 research가 산발적으로 흩어짐
2. 연구의 중심이 production 이 얼마나 fit 한가와 어떻게 shift 하는가에 있음
기존 이론이 간과한 혁신의 속성
1. 근본적으로 가진 불확실성(Uncertainty)
2. 산업부문별로 혁신을 지원하는 institutional structure가 매우 다양함
Table 1. Productivity growth in the private business economy by
industry group and industry 1948-1966
전체요소생산성 년 변화 : 화학 4.9 vs 담배 1.1
종업원별 output 년 변화: 화학 6.0 vs 전자장비 -4.1
Kendrick 1973 ‘Postwar Productivity Trends in the U.S.
2. The State of Current Understanding

2.1 The economist’s model of differential productivity growth(1)
Researcher
contribution
limitation
Kendrick
-산업 전 분야에 걸친 total factor
productivity
-Production theory에 기반
종업원별 생산성보다 전체요소 생산
성 성장률의 산업별 차이 초점
Mansfield
-Explicit production function formulation
-R&D expenditure를 capital의 형태로 봄
-제조업 부문만 다룸
Leonard
-Funding을 R&D하는 그 산업 자체에서
했는지, 정부에서 했는지로 분류
-제조업부문만 다룸
-전체 산업에서 어떤 funding경로가 효
과적인지 연구한 것인지 아니면 항공
산업이나 미사일 처럼 정부가 funding
을 함과 동시에 그 연구결과의 buyer
인 산업에 한정 되있는 것 인지 의문
Brown and
Conrad
-타 산업의 R&D와 그 중간재를 구입한
산업 변수(own&indirect R&D)
-제조업부문만 다룸
Terleckyj (1974) -비 제조업 부문을 함께 다룸
-Capital equipment와 intermediate input
R&D 구분
-slight misspecification the regresstion
weight
2. The State of Current Understanding

2.1 The economist’s model of differential productivity
growth(2)
-Institutional
variables
R&D
Expenditure
-Innate
differences
across
industries
Productivity
2. The State of Current Understanding

2.2 Building blocks for a broader theoretical structure
Productivity growth를 theoretical structure로 삼는 것이 좋지 않은 이유
1.
- innovation involves uncertainty in an essential way.
- Rather, a theoretical structure must encompass an essential diversity
and disequilibrium of choices. Because of the uncertainty involved,
different
differentpeople
people, and different organizations, will disagree as to where to
different
organizations
어디에
chips를
둘 것인지?
place their
R & D chips, and on
whenR&D
to make
their
bets. Some will be
언제 투자를 할지 의견 분분
proved right and some wrong.
최종결정들이 맞거나 혹은 틀릴 수도 있음
2.
A second fact that the microcosmic studies have illuminated is that the
institutional structure for innovation often is quite complex within an
economic sector, and varies significantly
economic
혁신을 위한between
제도적 구조는
산업sectors.
분야별
다양함(농업은 비영리기관에서 연구개발
하도록 진흥하는 제도 존재)
2. The State of Current Understanding
혁신 프로세스에 관한 산발적인 지식들이 통합될 수 있다면

2.2 Building blocks for a broader theoretical structure

If there is to be any hope of integrating the disparate pieces of knowledge
확률론적으로
진화하는
혁신의 본질(the
stochastic
about the innovation
process, a theory
of innovation
must incorporate
explicitly the stochastic
evolutionary
of innovation,
and must
have
evolutionary
nature nature
of innovation)
을 분명하게
내포하고
considerable room 있어야
for organizational
complexity and diversity.
한다. 또한 조직의 복잡성과 다양성이 있을 거라는
Premises
혁신이론(Theory of Innovation)은
여지를 가져야 한다.
First, in contrast with the production function oriented studies discussed earlier, we
반드시 생산성이 다른 부문으로 shift(향
posit that almost any nontrivial change in product or process, if there has been no
상 또는 저하)되야만 하는 것이 아니라
prior experience, is an innovation.
제품이나 프로세스에 적잖은 변화를 가
That is, we abandon the sharp distinction between moving along a production
져온다면 혁신으로 간주함.
function and shift to a new one that characterizes the studies surveyed earlier.
실질경제에 도입되기 이전과 이후의 어
Second, we treat any innovation as involving considerable uncertainty both
떠한 혁신이든지 상당한 불확실성을 갖
before it is ready for introduction to the economy, and even after it is
고 있다고 간주함. 그러므로 혁신프로세
introduced, and thus we view the innovation process as involving a continuing
스를 계속되는 불균형함을 포함하는 것
disequilibrium.
으로 생각한다.
3. The generation of Innovation

3.1 The profit maximization hypothesis and its limitations
In many cases, the organizations doing R & D are not motivated by profits at all, but
are governmental, or private not-for-profit institutions. The difficulty here
can be resolved on the surface by treating the term ‘profit’ very broadly to
stand for whatever objectives the organizations happen to have.
In many sectors there are a complex of R & D organizations, some profit oriented,
some governmental, some academic, doing different things, but interacting in
a synergistic way. In particular, in medicine, agriculture, and several other
sectors, private for-profit organizations do the bulk of R & D that leads to
marketable products, but academic institutions play a major role in creating
basic knowledge and data used in the more applied work.
산업별로 다양한 R&D 조직이 있다.
R&D 의 목적이 산업별로 다양하다.
3. The generation of Innovation

3.2. R&D strategies and probabilistic outcomes
상호반응을
보이면서to경험을
An R &D project, and the procedures used by an
R & D organization
identify통해
and
올바른heuristic
결정이 무엇인지
각자 스스로
screen R & D projects, can be viewed as interacting
search processes.
탐색하는 프로세스라고 볼 수 있다.
A quasi stable commitment to a particular set of heuristics regarding R & D
project selection can be regarded as an R & D strategy.
Often it is possible to identify a few R & D strategies that are prevalent in a
particular sector in a particular era.
An R & D strategy might be modeled extensively in terms of the heuristics employed
in the search processes and their consequences.
Algorithm for calculating an
optimum
Good Heuristics
3. The generation of Innovation

3.3 Natural trajectories
In many cases natural trajectories are specific to a particular
technology or broadly defined ‘technological regime’
- ex) In airframe design, theoretical understanding (at a relatively
mundane level) always has indicated that there are advantages of
getting a plane to fly higher where air resistance is lower. This
leads designers to think of pressurizing the cabin, demanding
aircraft engines that will operate effectively at higher altitudes,
etc.
•
4. The Selection Environment

4.1 Elements of the selection model
• the selection environment determines how relative use of different
technologies changes over time.
In almost all economic sectors the firms - for-profit private organizations,
public agencies, individual professionals - are subject to monitoring
mechanisms which influence the innovations that score well or poorly
according to the objectives of the firms
a second innovation spreading mechanism that needs to be considered –
imitation
• General model of the selection environment can be built from specification
of these three elements: the definition of ‘worth’ or profit that is operative for
the firms in the sector, the, manner in which consumer and regulatory
preferences and rules influence what is profitable, and the investment and
imitation processes that are involved.
•
4. The Selection Environment
4.2 The market as a selection environment
• Successful innovation leads to both higher profit for the
innovator and to profitable investment opportunities.
• Both the visible profits of the innovators and the losses
experienced by the laggers stimulate the latter to try to
imitate.

4.3 Nonmarket selection environment
• A hallmark of nonmarket sectors is that the separation of
interests between firms and customers is not as sharply
defined as in market sectors.

5. THOUGHTS ON THE EFFECTS OF
INSTITUTIONAL STRUCTURE


innovation be treated as inherently stochastic, and that
the formulation be capable of encompassing considerable
institutional complexity and variety.
the uncertainty and institutional diversity surrounding
innovation can help make thinking about policy issues
more sophisticated than has been the norm.
There is far more to institutional variation than
differences in the average size or market power of firms. In
some of the sectors the critical institutions are not firms at
all in the ordinary sense (e.g., medical care, garbage
collection, etc.).

Discussion