Innovation's Uncertain Terrain
Innovation's Uncertain Terrain
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创新的不确定领域
DOI：
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发表时间：
1995
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
N. Rosenberg
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
N. Rosenberg
为什么马可尼需要Sarnoff我们对未来的明显无能即使是先驱者也缺乏远见。铁路是为了给运河供水而开发的理解不确定性可能有助于我们更好地押注于新技术很少有人会不同意技术变革是长期经济增长的主要因素，或者它受到高度不确定性的困扰。理解这种不确定性的性质以及克服它的障碍不是一件小事。它涉及到新技术是如何设计的，它们传播的速度和范围，以及它们如何影响经济表现。与创新相关的深度不确定性使得创新公司历史上经历过高失败率并不令人惊讶。事实上，绝大多数创新尝试都失败了。但这只是故事的一部分。一个更有趣的研究领域可能是，即使在技术可行性已经确定之后，人们也显然普遍无法预测成功创新的未来影响。不确定性具有许多独特的性质，这些性质决定了创新过程，从而决定了技术变革对经济产生影响的方式。在考虑是什么决定了新技术的发展轨迹时，我建议关注那些产生了巨大影响的技术。一项既包括成功创新也包括不成功创新的研究可能会产生性质截然不同的见解。人们很容易认为，在一项新技术首次投入商业使用之后，不确定性就消失了。事实上，到目前为止，一些不确定性已经消失。然而，在建立了新的技术能力之后，问题发生了变化，新的不确定性，特别是经济性质的不确定性，开始显现出来。以激光为例，它是本世纪最强大、用途最广泛的技术进步之一。自发明以来的30年里，它的用途范围令人惊叹。激光可以在光盘播放器中再现音乐，也可以通过激光打印机再现文本。广泛应用于纺织、冶金、复合材料等行业的精密切割。激光已成为许多外科手术的首选工具，包括眼科、妇科和胆囊手术。也许激光最深刻的影响是在电信领域，与光纤相结合，它正在彻底改变传输。1966年，最好的跨大西洋电话电缆只能同时传输138个电话。第一条光纤电缆安装于1988年，可以传输40，000。那些在20世纪90年代初安装的可以携带近150万。（*）然而，尽管这种激光取得了惊人的成功，贝尔实验室的专利律师最初并不愿意为这种激光申请专利，因为他们认为这种激光与电话行业无关。许多其他的案例说明了一个现在看来明显无法预见新技术将很快投入使用的问题。无线电的发明者马可尼认为，无线电主要用于无法通过有线通信的两点之间，如船对船或船对海岸通信。他设想他的发明的用户是需要远距离传输私人信息的轮船公司、报纸和海军。广播的先驱们似乎从来没有想到过向广大听众而不是向一个单一的点进行传播的想法。这种社会想象力的失败是普遍存在的。一个后来成为广播业领袖的人宣称，很难看出公共广播能有什么用处。他唯一的建议是在星期天布道--这是唯一一个人定期向大众布道的场合。…
Why Marconi needed Sarnoff Our remarkable inability to see the future Even pioneers lack vision. Railroads were developed to feed canals Understanding uncertainty may help us place better bets on new technologies Few would disagree that technological change is a major ingredient of long-term economic growth, or that it is beset by a high degree of uncertainty. Understanding the nature of this uncertainty and the obstacles to surmounting it is not a trivial matter. It goes to the heart of how new technologies are devised, how rapidly and far they spread, and how they affect economic performance. The deep uncertainty associated with innovation makes it hardly surprising that innovating firms have historically experienced high failure rates. Indeed, the vast majority of attempts at innovation fail. But this is only part of the story. A more intriguing field of enquiry might be the apparently widespread inability to anticipate the future impact of successful innovations, even after their technical feasibility has been established. Uncertainty has a number of peculiar properties that shape the innovation process and hence the way in which technological change exercises its effects on the economy. In considering what has determined the trajectory of new technologies, I propose to focus on those that have made a powerful impact. A study that included unsuccessful as well as successful innovations might yield insights of a very different nature. It is easy to assume that uncertainties disappear after the first commercial introduction of a new technology. Indeed, by this point some uncertainties will have faded. However, after a new technological capability has been established, the questions change, and new uncertainties, especially those of an economic nature, begin to assert themselves. Historical perspectives Consider the laser, one of the most powerful and versatile technological advances this century. In the 30 years since its invention, its range of uses has been breathtaking. Lasers allow the reproduction of music in compact disc players, and of text via laser printers. They are widely used for precision cutting in the textile, metallurgy, and composite materials industries. The laser has become the instrument of choice in many surgical procedures, including eye, gynecological, and gall bladder surgery. Perhaps the most profound impact of the laser has been in telecommunications where, in combination with fiber optics, it is revolutionizing transmission. In 1966, the best transatlantic telephone cable could carry only 138 conversations simultaneously. The first fiber-optic cable, installed in 1988, could carry 40,000. Those installed in the early 1990s can carry nearly 1.5 million.(*) Yet despite what turned out to be a striking record of success, the patent lawyers at Bell Labs were initially unwilling to apply for a patent for the laser, believing it could have no relevance to the telephone industry. Many other case histories illustrate what now seems a remarkable inability to foresee the uses to which new technologies would soon be put. The inventor of the radio, Marconi, thought it would mainly be used between two points where communication by wire was impossible, as in ship-to-ship or ship-to-shore communication. He envisaged the users of his invention as steamship companies, newspapers, and navies needing to transmit private messages over long distances. The idea of communicating to a large audience of listeners rather than to a single point seems never to have occurred to the pioneers of radio. This failure of social imagination was widespread. One man, later to become a leader of the broadcasting industry, announced that it was hard to see what uses public broadcasting could serve. His sole suggestion was the transmission of Sunday sermons - the only occasion where one man regularly addressed a mass public. …