Corporate R&D bibliography

Latest

*Giffard, 2026, Narrative disconnect: where do our ideas about invention come from? in: History and Technology

Gabriel Galvez-Behar, 2025, L’inventeur autonome à l’épreuve de l’incorporation: une approche historique, in: Repenser l’agir moderne: Rationalités créatives, entreprises responsables et périls communs; autour des travaux d’Armand Hatchuel

Hintz, 2021, American Independent Inventors in an Era of Corporate R&D

FreakTakes – Helping builders in the metascience/progress studies space discover exciting, new ways forward

New Things Under the Sun – a living literature review on social science research about innovation

Miller-Klein Associates – helping businesses, organisations and individuals to imagine and realise the future

R&D Management Association (RADMA)

2010-2020

Arora, et al., 2017, The decline of science in corporate R&D, in: Strategic Management Journal

Curry, 2013, Industrial evolution: mechanical and biological innovation at the General Electric Research Laboratory, in: Technology and Culture

Moncada-Paternò-Castello, et al., 2011, Evolution of globalised business R&D: Features, drivers, impacts (European Commission)

Sally Smith Hughes, 2011, Genentech: the Beginnings of Biotech

2000-2010

Pattit, et al., 2007, What Can We Learn from the History of Corporate R&D to Understand Current Innovation Management Challenges?

*Scranton, 2006, Technology‐led innovation: the non‐linearity of US jet propulsion development, in: History and Technology. “Despite repeated announcements of its death or uselessness, the ‘linear model’ of science–technology relations persists, the notion that fundamental scientific research precedes applied studies that in time generate technological advances. This article undertakes first to revisit investigations and critiques of the model, and to remind historians of technology that intriguing alternatives to it have been developed. Second, using the case study of Cold War military jet propulsion, it argues that innovative, complex technologies have been created without reliable understanding of scientific fundamentals. These were messy, non‐linear, and failure‐filled processes, to be sure, yet they may well prove to have been more the rule than the exception, once scholars pursue richly textured studies of technical practice in experimental development.”

20thC

Oakes, 1995, 50 Years of Shell Research at Sittingbourne 1945-1995 (Shell)

Hounshell, 1988, Science and Corporate Strategy: Du Pont R&D, 1902-1980 (also see a presentation by the same author “Historical Perspective on Corporate R&D“)

Forman, 1987, Behind quantum electronics: national security as basis for physical research in the United States, 1940–1960, in: Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences

Miller, 1986, Managing Professionals in Research and Development

Kelly and Kranzberg, 1979, Technological Innovation: A Critical Review of Current Knowledge

Peacock, 1978, Jealott’s Hill: fifty years of agricultural research (ICI)

*Langrish, et al., 1972, Wealth from Knowledge: Studies of Innovation in Industry. “Five-point scale of size of change of technology” (pp. 65-66).

Beer, 1958, Coal tar dye manufacture and the origins of the modern industrial research laboratory, in: Isis

Gilfillan, 1935, The Sociology of Invention: an essay in the social causes, ways and effects of technic invention, especially as demonstrated historically in the author’s ‘Inventing the ship’

Ogburn and Thomas, 1922, Are inventions inevitable? A note on social evolution, in: Political Science Quarterly