Abstract
In sharp contrast with the focus on ‘spin-on’ within the military-industrial-university complex in Chapter 4, this chapter poses the following questions about the ‘spin-off’ process. How did the military-industrial-university complex achieve spin-off and, through that, develop R&D into national organizations? How similar or different were the factors that contributed to spin-off and the development of R&D into national organizations in Britain and Japan? And from the similarities and differences, what general insights can we obtain into the interaction between science, technology and industrial society?
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Notes
White, ‘On the establishment of an experimental tank’, p. 54. For a brief general history of the NPL, see Edward Pyatt, The National Physical Laboratory: A History (Bristol: Adam Hilger, 1983).
It is also possible to perceive here the increasing influence of the middle class on science and technology since the mid-eighteenth century compared with earlier period when science and technology, particularly science, tended to be a pastime mostly for the upper class (the nobility). See, for example, N. Hans, New Trends in Education in the 18th Century (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1951), pp. 32–3.
For the Literary and Philosophical Society, see, for example, R. E. Schofield, The Lunar Society of Birmingham: A Social History of Provincial Science and Industry in 18th Century England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963);
N. McKendrich, ‘The role of science in the industrial revolution: a study of Josiah Wedgewood as a scientist and industrial chemist’, in M. Teich and R. Young (eds) Changing Perspectives in the History of Science: Essays in Honour of J. Needham (London: Heinemann, 1973), pp. 275–319;
Arnold Thackray, ‘Natural knowledge in cultural context: the Manchester model’, American Historical Review, vol. 79, no. 3 (1974), pp. 672–709;
J. B. Morrell, ‘Individualism and the structure of British science in 1830’, Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences, vol. 3 (1971), pp. 183–204.
For scientific chairs created by various research institutes, see, for example, T. Martin, ‘Origins of the Royal Institution’, British Journal for the History of Science, vol. 1 (1962), pp. 49–63;
M. Berman, Social Change and Scientific Organization: The Royal Institution, 1799–1844 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1978);
M. L. Cooper and V. M. D. Hall, ‘W. Robert Grave and the London Institution, 1841–1845’, Annals of Science, vol. 39, no. 3 (1982), pp. 229–54.
For the British Association for the Advancement of Science, see, for example, O. J. R. Howarth, The British Association for the Advancement of Science: A Retrospect 1831–1931 (London: British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1931);
A. D. Orange, ‘The British Association for the Advancement of Science: the provincial background’, Science Studies, vol. 1 (1971), pp. 315–29;
Roy MacLeod and Peter Collins (eds) The Parliament of Science: The British Association for the Advancement of Science; 1831–1981 (Northwood, Middlesex: Science Reviews, 1981). For professional societies in a specific field, there are too many references to be given here. The Institution of Naval Architects in Britain will be considered in comparison with the Shipbuilding Association in Japan below. For an outline, see Chapter 1. For a comprehensive study of these different groups for science and technology until the mid-nineteenth century,
See J. B. Morrell and A. Thackray, Gentlemen of Science (Oxford: Clarendon, 1981).
For a work on the professionalization process in England, see William J. Reader, Professional Men: The Rise of the Professional Classes in 19th Century England (London: Basic, 1966).
For a classical general description of the process by sociologists, see, for example, Geoffrey Millerson, The Qualifying Association: A Study in Professionalisation (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1964).
See Charles Babbage, Reflections on the Decline of Science in England and on Some of its Causes (London: B. Fellowes, 1830), p. 10; idem, The Exposition of 1851 (London: John Murray, 1851), p. 189.
Since scientists generally lack a particular group of clients in the wider society they belong to, the process of the professionalization of science was fairly haphazard. For a standard work on the haphazard process of the professionalization of science in England, see D. S. L. Cardwell, The Organization of Science in England (London: Heinemann, rev. edn, 1972).
See Charles A. Parsons, ‘The application of the compound steam turbine to the purpose of marine propulsion’, TINA, vol. 38 (1897), pp. 232–42.
The governmental sectors of the day too had little sense of ‘rewards for services’ offered to the private sector. According to Akio Yamagata who became the director of the Mejiro tank in 1940, even after the start of these services, fees required from the private sector were kept extraordinarily inexpensive in consideration of national policy for improving the quality of domestically produced ships. See Akio Yamagata, ‘Senkei shiken 10 nen o kataru’ (The 10 years history of the Mejiro tank), Mota Shippu, vol. 10, no. 4 (1937), pp. 268–73.
Although commonsense concepts are intellectually appealing and often useful to the understanding of societies, the dichotomy has little explanatory power in this context. For work calling attention to general pitfalls associated with the use of these concepts in sociology, see, for example, Steven M. Lukes, Individualism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1973);
Hiroshi Hazama, Igirisu no Shakai to Roshikankei: Hikaku Shakaigakuteki Kosatsu (Industrial relations in British society: a comparative sociological consideration) (Tokyo: Nihon Rodo Kyokai, 1974), and others.
As far as the control of behaviour is concerned, this culture has something to do with general expectations. However, in two respects, the culture in this context is different from norm used in the sociology of science and technology. First, it concerns both individual and group behaviour, whereas norm is mainly concerned with individual behaviour. Second, its extension covers ‘the interaction between the behaviours of individual scientists/engineers and their groups, and other subgroups in industrial society’, whereas the extension of norm has been mainly confined to the interaction between scientists alone. ‘Folkways’ in sociology might fit better with the usage of culture here. See William G. Sumner, Folkways: A Study of the Social Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores and Morals (Boston: Ginn, 1907), ch. 1.
In a stricter sense, there is even a view that culture is almost impossible to transfer. See William F. Ogburn, Social Change: With Respect to Culture and Original Nature (New York: B. W. Huebsch, 1922), esp. p. 200ff.
for an extreme standpoint claiming the strictest distinction of culture from other social forms, see Alfred Weber, ‘Prinzipielles zur Kultursoziologie (Gesellschaftsprozess, Zivilisationsprozess und Kulturbewegung)’, Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik, band. 47 (1920), s. 1–49.
For a classical overview on the point by a sociologist, see Robert Merton, ‘Civilization and culture’, Sociology and Social Research, vol. 21 (1936), pp. 103–13.
Rules of the latter type tend to survive without respect to the purposes they were initially designed for. The phenomenon has been usually called reification within a more general formulation of a sociological theory. See Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality (New York: Anchor, 1967), and others.
In traditional and current usage in the social history of science and technology, ‘institutionalization’ in this broad sense and ‘professionalization’ as defined in Chapter 1 have not been conceptually distinguished, the origin of which goes back to J. D. Bernal. See, for example, J. D. Bernal, The Social Function of Science (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1939), esp. pp. 1–15.
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© 2006 Miwao Matsumoto
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Matsumoto, M. (2006). ‘Spin-off’ in the Nationalization of R&D: The Recasting of the British System in an Industrializing Japan. In: Technology Gatekeepers for War and Peace. St Antony’s Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230504172_5
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