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INNOVATION
AND ITS ENEMIES
“A must read for anyone who wishes to engage in disruption
themselves.”
—Sir Richard J. Roberts
Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine and Chief Scientific Officer,
New England Biolabs
“This is a good read and an invaluable reference work for those work-
ing on new technologies, especially those needed to meet the grand
challenges of the twenty-first century.”
—Lord Alec Broers
British House of Lords and Former Vice Chancellor of the University of
Cambridge
Calestous Juma
1
1
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers
the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education
by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University
Press in the UK and certain other countries.
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America
To my son Eric
Contents
Acknowledgments | ix
Introduction | 1
NO T E S | 317
I N DE X | 371
vii
Acknowledgments
This book has benefited from many people who have offered me
guidance, research, insights and comments. The book was written
over sixteen years, and so it will not be possible to acknowledge
everyone who supported me over the period. In fact, I can trace
some of the ideas in the book back to the early 1980s when I worked
under the late Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai at the
Nairobi-based Environment Liaison Centre (ELC). The preceding
oil crises and environmental concerns had inspired considerable
interest in clean energy, which culminated in the convening of the
United Nations Conference on New and Renewable Energy Sources
in Nairobi in 1981. It became clear then that seemingly basic ideas
such as tree planting encounter numerous social obstacles. While
at ELC my thinking about technology and the environment was
shaped by the guidance of Gary Gallon and the inspirational lead-
ership of Mostafa Tolba, then Executive Director of the United
Nations Environment Programme.
Along my intellectual journey I benefited immensely from
inspirational support, suggestions, and comments from many
colleagues. The list is too long to be exhaustive here, but I will
mention just a few. They include Philipp Aerni, Bruce Alberts,
Graham Allison, Lewis Branscomb, John Browne, Norman Clark,
Abdallah Daar, Henry Etzkowitz, Leonel Antonio Fernández,
ix
x | Acknowledgments
New ideas are not only the enemy of old ones; they also appear often
in an extremely unacceptable form.
C A R L G U S T AV J U N G
The quickest way to find out who your enemies are is to try doing
something new. This book explores the dynamics of social opposi-
tion to innovation.1 In his pioneering work, the Austrian econo-
mist Joseph Schumpeter identified innovation as the central force
in economic transformation. Much of the scholarly elaboration of
his work has focused on how innovation drives economic evolu-
tion and the critical role that entrepreneurs play in the process.
Innovation, according to Schumpeter, is the creation of new com-
binations that represent a departure from established practices.
Schumpeter noted that resistance to innovation is experienced by
the innovator, businesses, and the wider economy. He observed
that deviation from the norm elicits astonishment and pressure on
developers of new technologies and entrepreneurs seeking to bring
them to market. He added that it may “even come to social ostra-
cism and finally to physical prevention or to direct attack.”2
Resistance to new technologies is often frowned upon as a tem-
porary phenomenon that is inevitably overcome by technological
progress. In fact, Schumpeter himself suggested that the “opposi-
tion is stronger in primitive states of culture than in others.”3 He
was acutely aware of the forces of incumbency and acknowledged
that “all knowledge and habit once acquired becomes as firmly
rooted in ourselves as a railway embankment in the earth. It does
not require to be continually renewed and consciously reproduced,
but sinks into the strata of subconciousness.”4 This metaphor sets
1
2 | I n n o v at i o n a n d I t s E n e m ie s
11
12 | I n n o v at i o n a n d I t s E n e m ie s
Technology, Innovation,
and Global Challenges
The world faces a number of grand challenges that are gaining public
attention. According to the US National Academy of Engineering,
these challenges fall into four main categories: sustainability,
health, security, and life enrichment. Sustainability encompasses
the need to make solar energy economical, provide energy from
fusion, develop carbon sequestration methods, and manage the
nitrogen cycle. For improved health, there must be access to clean
water, the engineering of better medicines, advancement in health
informatics, and work done to reverse engineer the brain. The chal-
lenges to security will require actions to secure cyberspace, prevent
nuclear terror, and restore and improve urban infrastructure. The
challenge to life enrichment requires work to enhance virtual real-
ity, advance personalized learning, and engineer the tools for sci-
entific discovery.2 As the world’s challenges have evolved, so has
society’s view of technological innovation, and this has implica-
tions for technological adoption.
Human understanding of the role of technological innova-
tion in society is changing for three major reasons. Historically,
technological innovation was a slow process. Today, many new
technologies and engineering solutions are generated at a rate
faster than society can design new complementary institutions.
The faster pace of innovation has far-reaching social implications,
as reflected by the public reaction to the erosion of privacy due
to improved technology for data collection. Second, many fields
have seen a considerable shortening of innovation cycles. This
enables new products to reach the market at a faster rate than
was the case in preceding decades. Third, globalization has cre-
ated new opportunities for the rapid diffusion of new technology
and engineering practices.
Shorter time frames between research and product release
have changed the nature of technology forecasting, requiring
G a l e s o f C r e a t i v e D e s t r u c t i o n | 13
FINIS
FOOTNOTES:
[104] Political Science Quarterly, vol. xix (1904), p. 676.
[105] G. Myers, “History of Tammany Hall,” p. 285.
[106] Mr. Ernest Poole under the title of “New Readers of the
News” in the American Magazine for November 1907, (65:41),
presents an extremely interesting study of the broadening power
of the press along this line.
[107] “The France of To-day,” pp. 223 et seq.
[108] As, e.g., fraudulent promotion, adulteration, the building of
unsanitary tenements, failure to provide proper safety devices in
theatres and factories or on railroads and steamships.
[109] Cf. Mr. Frederic C. Howe’s admirable article on “Graft in
England,” American Magazine, vol. lxiii (1907), p. 398.
[110] Nation, lxxxi (November 23, 1905), p. 422.
[111] Note, for example, the very different treatment of the
campaign contribution question in the two countries. It may be
conceded that America has much to learn from England with
regard to the control of election expenditures. On the side of
collections, however, it is notorious that in England both political
parties unblushingly barter titles for financial support. There is
something particularly despicable in this pollution of the “fountain
of honour” to procure campaign funds, yet on the rare occasions
when the matter is brought up in Parliament its discussion is
characterised by hilarity rather than by moral earnestness. In
American politics the corresponding evil is felt to be a scandal
and as such provokes not only the curative legislation discussed
in an earlier study but also much bitter and noisy denunciation.
[112] Any illusion as to the ease of restraining privilege in the
United States is likely to be speedily dispelled by the reading of
President Arthur T. Hadley’s masterly discussion in the
Independent of April 16, 1908, of “The Constitutional Position of
Property in America.”
[113] In “The Old Order Changeth,” American Magazine, lxvii
(1909), p. 219.
[114] No political reform now before the American people
promises more beneficent results than the short ballot movement.
It advocates the principle “that democracy can reach more
efficient working through a drastic reduction in the present
number of officials selected by the individual voter, thus securing
a ballot which is very short and which includes only offices that
are of sufficient public interest to attract from the voters a scrutiny
and comparison of candidates that will be adequate to make their
relative individual merits a matter of common knowledge.” Cf. the
vigorous little pamphlet by Richard S. Childs on “The Short Ballot:
A New Plan of Reform,” reprinted from the Outlook of July 17,
1909, New York, 127 Duane St., 1909.
[115] “Sin and Society,” pp. 29-30.
INDEX
Immigrants, 31.
Inefficiency, 16, 48-51.
Intentional character of corruption, 48.
International corruption, 170.
Machine, political (see also Boss, Party Organisation), 17, 20, 72.
Magee, Chris., 99.
Materialism, 53.
Mencius, 51.
Merriam, Professor C. E., 270.
Michels, Professor Robert, 179.
Mistresses, royal, 90.
Mob rule, 17, 66.
Monarchies, corruption in, as compared with democracies, 54.
Monopolies, contracting rings, 13;
era of consolidation, 163.
Moral uprisings, 188.
More, Paul Elmer, 153.
Muckraking, 281.
Municipal corruption, 83, 84, 98, 101, 184.
Municipal ownership, 13.
Municipal Research, Bureau of, 184.
Myers, Gustavus, 280.