Dissertation Research: Navigating the Cold War Economy: Corporate Strategy and Commercial Innovation, 1945-1975

本论文的研究项目采用比较研究的方法，侧重于产业研究，解决了冷战对经济影响的长期争论。它建议阐明在冷战研究环境中，具有不同文化、核心技术、研发战略和对军事合同的依赖程度的公司的技术、组织和经济成果的范围。它聚焦于三个领域：第一个领域探讨了冷战期间政治、军事和科学领导人之间关于科学技术关系的共鸣思想对军事研发合同政策内容的影响程度。有人认为，工业研发历史学家提出的一种假设是，对科学研究对11次世界大战重大技术突破的贡献的误读，导致军方领导人过度强调基础科学研究的承包。第二个领域分析了从朝鲜战争结束到20世纪60年代末在西屋、费尔柴尔德、格鲁曼、波音、斯佩里、洛克希德、TRW、罗克韦尔和福特的公司战略和工业研究的组织。虽然企业在这一部分占据中心位置，但研究人员也考察了军事和工业之间的关系，以破译军事对企业内部研究组织的直接和间接影响。第三个领域主要涉及20世纪70年代初的工业。研究人员得出了关于个别公司产生商业上成功的创新的能力的结论，并就冷战对美国经济的总体影响提出了主张。

This dissertation research project addresses the longstanding debate on the economic impact of the Cold War by taking a comparative approach and focusing on industrial research. It proposes to illuminate the range of technological, organizational, and economic outcomes firms with different cultures, core technologies, R&D strategies, and levels of dependence on military contracts achieved within the Cold War research environment. It focuses on three areas: the first explores the extent to which ideas resonant among political, military, and scientific leaders during the Cold War concerning the relationship between science and technology influenced the content of military R&D contracting policies. Considered is the hypothesis, advanced by historians of industrial R&D, that a misreading of the contributions of scientific research to the major technological breakthroughs of World War 11 led military leaders to place undue emphasis on contracting for basic scientific research. The second area analyzes corporate strategy and the organization of industrial research from the end of the Korean War to the late 1960s at Westinghouse, Fairchild, Grumman, Boeing, Sperry, Lockheed, TRW, Rockwell, and Ford. Although corporations take center stage in this section, the researcher also examines the relationship between the military and industry to decipher the direct and indirect military influences on the organization of research within firms. The third area deals mostly with industry in the early 1970s. The researcher draws conclusions regarding the ability of individual firms to produce commercially successful innovations and makes claims regarding the overall impact of the Cold War on the United States economy.