Official statisticians as conceptual innovators

ABSTRACT

Statistics are impossible without concepts. As the sociologist of invention Colum Gilfillan put it in 1952, ‘counting begins with definition of the thing to be counted’. This article is concerned with statistics on science, technology and innovation (STI). It documents how official statisticians have, over time, defined the concepts used for measurement. Debates on definitions of the concepts measured started at the very beginning of STI measurement in the first half of the twentieth century. Then, from the early 1960s onward, methodological manuals were developed to conventionalize the definitions. This article claims that the manuals did not have the expected result. They did not stabilize the definitions and the statistics based thereon.

KEYWORDS:

• Innovation
• statistics
• intellectual history

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Benoît Godin is professor at the Institut National de la RechercheScientifique (INRS), Montreal, Canada. He conducts research on the intellectual history of science, technology and innovation. He recently published Innovation Contested: The Idea of Innovation Over the Centuries (Routledge, 2015).

Notes

1. ‘Like all analytical concepts, the terms “invention, innovation, and diffusion” lose some of their preciseness when one attempts to apply them to historical facts’ (Scoville 1951, p. 347). Innovation ‘lacks precise definition’ (Maclaurin 1955). ‘Innovation has come to mean all things to all men, and the careful student should perhaps avoid it wherever possible, using instead some other term’ (Ames 1961, p. 371); ‘We shall do better without the word innovation’ (Machlup 1962, p. 179). ‘Every change becomes an innovation simply because it has not been done before … Such a definition sterilizes the term innovation’ (Becker and Whisler 1967, p. 463). ‘The use of the term innovation is counterproductive’ because each individual has his or her own interpretation. ‘It may be useful to drop the term “technological innovation” for purposes of survey design’ (Roberts and Romine 1974, p. 4).

2. To academics like James Cattell, it was initially locating the best researchers to fund (Godin 2007).

3. The definition in the 1970 edition of the Frascati manual (the 1962 edition had no definition of research) reads as follows: ‘Creative work undertaken on a systematic basis to increase the stock of scientific and technical knowledge and to use this stock of knowledge to devise new applications’ (OECD 1970, p. 31).

4. ‘It really matters little, as far as human behavior is concerned, whether or not the idea is objectively new as measured by the amount of time elapsed since its first use or discovery. It is the newness of the idea to the individual that determines his reaction to it’ (Rogers 1962, p. 13).

5. ‘Researchers have implicitly assumed that to adopt innovations is desirable behavior [rational] and to reject innovations is less desirable’ [irrational] (Rogers 1962, p. 142). ‘The most outstanding feature of innovation is its mysteriousness …  Many problems arise in defining innovation … because of the value judgment attached to the term …  The difficulty here is that most of us expect an innovation to be something good’ (Knight 1967, p. 478). ‘One of the vogue words these days is innovation. For some people it is even more – it is a value word that implies something good and positive’ (Holt 1971, p. 235). ‘Innovation tends to be viewed in positive terms socially. It is a good thing to advocate and to participate in. For the most part, researchers have assumed that innovation is good, and have sought to determine the conditions under which innovation takes place, the conditions that facilitate its diffusion, and the characteristics which distinguish more innovative individuals, groups and organizations from less innovative ones. One implicit assumption appears to be that research should foster innovation …  Rarely if ever is not adopting an innovation considered to be a possibly important, adaptive strategy’ (Kimberly 1981, pp. 84–85, 88).

6. Such a classification is not really new. One can find similar ones in the 1970s. For example, Thomas Robertson, professor of marketing, distinguished several criteria for newness, as found in the literature on innovation: newness from existing products (radical or incremental), newness in time (introduction to the market), newness in terms of sales level, newness to the customer (subjective perception) (Robertson 1971, pp. 4–7).

7. In 1969, the OECD Center for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) offered a more generic definition (although limited to education) than that of the Oslo manual: ‘Attempts at change in an educational system which are consciously and purposefully directed with the aim of improving the present system’ (OECD 1969, p. 13). Types of innovation included in the definition are organizational innovation, technological innovation and curricular innovation (OECD 1969, pp. 50–54).

8. ‘Technological innovations comprise new products and processes and significant technological changes of products and processes. An innovation has been implemented if it has been introduced on the market (product innovation) or used within a production process (process innovation)’ (OECD 1992, para. 90).

9. ‘Technological product and process (TPP) innovations comprise implemented technologically new products and processes and significant technological improvements in products and processes. A TPP innovation has been implemented if it has been introduced on the market (product innovation) or used within a production process (process innovation)’ (OECD 1997, p. 31).

10. ‘An innovation is the implementation of a new or significantly improved product (good or service), or process, or a new marketing method, or a new organizational method (in business practice, workplace organization or external relations)’ (OECD 2005, p. 46). ‘An innovation … must have been implemented. A new or improved product is implemented when it is introduced on the market. New processes, marketing methods or organizational methods are implemented when they are brought into actual use in the firm’s operations’ (OECD 2005, p. 47).

11. To the latest edition of the Oslo manual, these activities are R&D, acquisition of external knowledge and technology, acquisition of machinery, equipment and other capital goods, preparations for development and implementation (later phases of development not included in R&D, like industrial design, engineering and set-up, trial production, patent and license work, market research, manufacturing start-up and testing, advertising) and training (required for implementation).

12. Innovation is a process in three parts: invention, (initial) innovation (‘when a firm introduces a new or improved product into the economy for the first time’), and (innovation by) imitation, later called diffusion (OECD 1966, p. 9). The Pavitt and Wald study does not talk of process, but distinguishes the stages of invention, innovation and diffusion as ‘indispensable to understand the various economic policy implications of science and technology’ (OECD 1971, p. 19). ‘Technical innovation is defined as comprising those technical, industrial, commercial steps which lead to the successful marketing of new manufactured products and/or to the commercial use of technically new processes or equipment. These terms in fact define the concept of the innovation process’ (OECD 1978, p. 18). According to the OECD, this process is composed of four stages, ‘from invention to market’: invention, prototype and development, technical and commercial feasibility studies, production. The 1981 edition of the Frascati manual included a definition of innovation for the first time, as follows: ‘Transformation of an idea into a new or improved salable product or operational process …  It involved all those activities, technical, commercial, and financial steps, other than R&D, necessary for the successful development and marketing of a manufactured product and the commercial use of the processes and equipment … ’ (OECD 1981, p. 15, 28).

13. ‘Innovations involve a series of scientific, technological, organisational, financial and commercial activities’ (OECD 1992, para. 90). ‘TPP innovations involve a series of scientific, technological, organisational, financial and commercial activities. The TPP innovating firm is one that has implemented technologically new or significantly technologically improved products or processes during the period under review’ (OECD 1997, p. 31).

14. For similar data on Italy and Germany, see Sirilli 1999 and Grenzmann 2000.