Entrepreneurship at American Universities

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511805950.008

7 - Entrepreneurship at American Universities

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012

Nathan Rosenberg

Edited by

Zoltan J. Acs ,

David B. Audretsch and

Robert J. Strom

Show author details

Nathan Rosenberg: Affiliation:
Stanford University
Zoltan J. Acs: Affiliation:
George Mason School of Public Policy, Fairfax
David B. Audretsch: Affiliation:
Indiana University, Bloomington
Robert J. Strom: Affiliation:
Kauffman Foundation, Kansas City

Book contents

Get access

Summary

Innovations, almost by definition, are one of the least analyzed parts of economics, in spite of the verifiable fact that they have contributed more to per capita economic growth than any other factor.

Ken Arrow

Some Historical Perspectives

My central concern in this chapter is with innovation in the American university community. I have chosen to begin with the term “innovation” rather than “entrepreneurship” because I propose to deal with issues that take us well beyond “entrepreneurship,” as that term is ordinarily used. I by no means ignore the traditional entrepreneur, but I also address larger themes such as the creation and the institutionalization of new academic disciplines and the roles that they have played, in turn, in the discovery and the diffusion of (potentially) useful knowledge.

The trajectory taken in the United States versus Europe owes a great deal to the political system in which it occurs. After the Napoleonic Wars, institutions of higher education in much of continental Europe became, overwhelmingly, public. In effect, they were nationalized, with extensive centralized control as the inevitable accompaniment of centralized funding. University faculty became civil servants.

Higher education in the United States was shaped by a very different set of political forces, the most distinguishing feature of which was an aversion to the centralization of power. The federalization of the country in the last two decades of the eighteenth century translated into the localization of decision making as well as financial support of the educational system.

Type: Chapter
Information: Entrepreneurship, Growth, and Public Policy , pp. 146 - 175

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511805950.008 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderson, John D. 1997. A History of Aerodynamics. Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge University Press.CrossRef Google Scholar

Arora, Ashish, and Gambardella, Alfonso. 1994. “The Changing Technology of Technical Change: General and Abstract Knowledge and the Division of Innovative Labour.”Research Policy, 23.CrossRef Google Scholar

Arora, Ashish, Landau, Ralph, and Rosenberg, Nathan. 1998. Chemicals and Long-Term Economic Growth: Insights from the Chemical Industry. New York: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar

Aspray, William, and Williams, Bernard O.. 1994. “Arming American Scientists: NSF and the Provision of Scientific Computing Facilities for Universities, 1950–1973.” IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, 16(4), 60–74.CrossRef Google Scholar

Braun, Dietmar. 1994. Structure and Dynamics of Health Research and Public Funding: An International Institutional Comparison. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.Google Scholar

Elder, Albert. 1970. The History of Penicillin Production. New York: American Institute of Chemical Engineers.Google Scholar

Enos, John L. 1962. Petroleum Progress and Profits: A History of Process Innovation. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar

Gelijns, Annetine, and Rosenberg, Nathan. 1995. “From the Scalpel to the Scope: Endoscopic Innovations in Gastroenterology, Gynecology, and Surgery.” In Sources of Medical Technology: Universities and Industry, Gilijns, A. and Rosenberg, N., eds. National Academies Press, chap. 4.Google Scholar

Gelijns, Annetine, and Rosenberg, Nathan. 1999. “Diagnostic Devices: An Analysis of Comparative Advantages.” In Sources of Industrial Leadership, Mowery, David and Nelson, Richard, eds. Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge University Press, chap. 8.Google Scholar

Goodstein, Judith R. 1991. Millikan's School: A History of the California Institute of Technology. New York: W.W. Norton.Google Scholar

Hanle, Paul A. 1982. Bringing Aerodynamics to America. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar

Jahnig, C. E., Martin, H. Z., and Campbell, D. L.. 1983. “The Development of Fluid Catalytic Cracking.” In Heterogeneous Catalysis: Selected American Histories, Davis, Burton and Hettinger, William, eds. American Chemical Society.Google Scholar

Karman, Theodore, and Edson, Lee. 1967. The Wind and Beyond. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar

Klug, A., and Crowther, R. A.. 1972. “Three-Dimensional Image Reconstruction from the Viewpoint of Information Theory.” Nature, 238, 435–440.CrossRef Google Scholar

Landau, Ralph. 1966. The Chemical Plant: From Process Selection to Commercial Operation. New York: Reinhold Publishing.Google Scholar

Langlois, Richard N., and Mowery, David C.. 1996. “The Federal Government Role in the Development of the U.S. Software Industry.” In The International Computer Software Industry: A Comparative Study of Industry Evolution and Structure, Mowery, David C., ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 53–85.Google Scholar

Levine, David O. 1986. The American College and the Culture of Aspiration, 1915–1940. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar

Lewis, Warren K., Walker, William H., and McAdams, William H.. 1923. Principles of Chemical Engineering. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar

Little, Arthur D. 1933. “Chemical Engineering Research.”In Twenty-five Years of Chemical Engineering Progress, Kirkpatrick, S. D., ed. American Institute of Chemical Engineers, chap. 1.Google Scholar

Miller, Ronald, and Sawers, David. 1970. The Technical Development of Modern Aviation. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar

Mowery, David C. 1996. The International Computer Software Industry: A Comparative Study of Industry Evolution and Structure. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

Mowery, David C. 2004. Ivory Tower and Industrial Innovation: University-Industry Technology Transfer Before and After the Bayh-Dole Act. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar

,National Academy of Science. 1999. Funding a Revolution: Government Support for Computing Research. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.

Norberg, Arthur, and O'Neill, Judy. 1996. Transforming Computer Technology: Information Processing for the Pentagon, 1962–1986. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 289–90.Google Scholar

Resch, Helmuth, Blankenhorn, Paul R., Haygreen, John G., and Thompson, Warren S.. 1985. “Forest Products Research at U.S. Universities in 1982.” Wood and Fiber Science, 17(4), 568–584.Google Scholar

Rosenberg, Nathan. 1982. Inside the Black Box: Technology and Economics. Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar

Rosenberg, Nathan. 1998. “Technological Change in Chemicals: The Role of University-Industry Relations.” In Chemicals and Long-Term Economic Growth, Arora, A., Landau, R., and Rosenberg, N., eds. New York: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar

Rosenberg, Nathan. 2000. “Chemical Engineering as a General Purpose Technology.” In Schumpeter and the Endogeneity of Technology: Some American Perspectives, Rosenberg, Nathan, ed. London: Routledge, chap. 5.CrossRef Google Scholar

Steinmueller, W. Edward. 1996. “The U.S. Software Industry: An Analysis and Interpretive History.” In The International Computer Software Industry: A Comparative Study of Industry Evolution and Structure, Mowery, David C., ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 15–52.Google Scholar

,The Stanford Bulletin 2006–07. Publication of the Office of the University Registrar, Stanford University. Available at: http://www.stanford.edu/dept/registrar/bulletin/current/index.html.

Trajtenberg, Manuel. 1990. Economic Analysis of Product Innovation: The Case of CT Scanners. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar

,UNIDO. 2005. Capability Building for Catching-up. UNIDO, Vienna, 46.

Vincenti, Walter. 1990. What Engineers Know and How They Know It. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 141.Google Scholar

Walker, William H., Lewis, Warren K., and McAdams, William H.. 1937. Principles of Chemical Engineering. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar

Weber, Harold C. 1980. The Improbable Achievement: Chemical Engineering at MIT. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar

Wildes, Karl, and Lindgren, Nilo. 1985. A Century of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT, 1882–1982. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 378–379.Google Scholar

Book contents

7 - Entrepreneurship at American Universities

Summary

Access options

References

Save book to Kindle

Save book to Dropbox

Save book to Google Drive