Evolutionary Innovation
Subtitle: The Business of Biotechnology
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: June 24, 1996
Language: eng
Number of pages: 334
ISBN-13: 9780198289968
First sentence: Arguments about the importance of 'market pull' versus 'technology push' are in this sense artificial, since each market need entering the innovation cycle leads in time to a new design, and every successful new design, in time, leads to new market conditions.
Description: This book examines the initial commercial uses of genetic engineering. Genetic engineering is one of the most modern, controversial and dynamic of the science based technologies. It is not an object but a set of techniques or way of doing things. The development of these techniques from the 1970s onwards illustrates the changing relationships between universities and firms and between basic science and research oriented towards commercial uses.

The main focus of the book is on two firms - Genentech in the United States and Kabi in Sweden and their activities and 'knowledge-seeking' behaviour in the development of human growth hormone and how those ran in parallel with university science.

As well as providing a remarkably clear account of these developments (the book includes a chapter on the basics of biotechnology for the lay person), McKelvey also provides a fresh contribution to our understanding of innovation processes by using the evolutionary metaphor to interpret patterns of change where novelty, transmission, and selection are important elements, and where the knowledge-seeking behaviour of firms and other agents are critical for survival and development.

The book will be of considerable interest to a wide audience concerned to understand the complexities of innovation processes in the 'knowledge society' - management and organization researchers, economists, policy advisers, managers and strategies responsible for turning knowledge into product and profit.