Industrial Research with Some Notes Concerning its Scope in the Bell Telephone System

Jewett, Frank B.

doi:10.1109/t-aiee.1917.4765503

“…Under Jewett's leadership, therefore, a new research policy encouraged staff to engage in active academic research. Publication was held in high regard (Jewett, 1917(Jewett, , 1928(Jewett, , 1932(Jewett, , 1939. The lab was restructured to feel more like a university research environment, where small groups of researchers maintained freedom and autonomy in pursuing their research.…”

Section: Quantization: Theory and Techniquementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Similarly, in a 1924 speech, Carty (1924, pp. 1-2) depicts pure science as furnishing "the engineer and the industrial chemist and other workers in applied science [with] the raw material to be elaborated into manifold agencies for the amelioration of mankind, for the advancement of our business, the improvement of our industries". This subordination of basic research to "industrial research" is apparent JHRM 2,4 in Jewett's publications (Jewett, 1917(Jewett, , 1928(Jewett, , 1932(Jewett, , 1939. In one he describes how the pure sciences had "given us [industrial researchers] an enormously enlarged and more substantial substructure on which to build a stable edifice of material things" "to reach a desired utilitarian goal rather than acquire new knowledge" (Jewett, 1928, p. 463).…”

Section: Quantization: Theory and Techniquementioning

confidence: 99%

The emergence of MP3 technology

Denegri‐Knott¹,

Tadajewski

²

2010

Jnl of Hist Res in Mrkting

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Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to produce a critical history of MP3 technology in an effort to show how its stature as the digital music format of choice had nothing to do with music or associated industries and that its configuration as a product to be bought and sold was unintended. Design/methodology/approach -The approach is reminiscent of Michel Foucault's critical histories, which sought to problematise our current understanding of existing cultural arrangements by unearthing the conditions that made the production of knowledge and their accompanying artefacts possible. Findings -The paper documents how MP3s emerged by outlining the conditions that made its production viable, showing how before MP3s were profiled as commodities to be bought and sold online, the composite of technologies making up the standard MPEG1-Layer III were objects of knowledge within the fields of electrical engineering and psychoacoustics, and later a process of compression used mainly by audio broadcasting professionals. The paper concludes by examining MPEG1-Layer III's reconstitution as MP3: its formal configuration and valuation, first as a license for the broadcasting industry to compress sound and then as a "free-ware" application distributed online. Originality/value -The paper problematises the taken for granted status of commodities, in this case, MP3s, as digital music to be bought and sold, by revealing how they emerged. At a more parochial level, it produces a competing history of MP3 technology which until now has not been told.

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Competing Research Traditions in American Industry: Uncertain Alliances between Engineering and Science at Westinghouse Electric, 1886–1935

Kline¹,

Lassman²

2005

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Westinghouse Electric opened a new research laboratory near the company’s main factory in East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1916. Located in the suburban borough of Forest Hills, the laboratory was set up to provide scientific knowledge for the older materials testing and product development laboratories at the factory. Unlike its industrial counterparts, however, the Forest Hills laboratory was dominated by a strong engineering research tradition that disrupted efforts undertaken in the 1920s and again in the 1930s to build and sustain a diversified fundamental research program. Whereas Eastman Kodak, DuPont, AT&T, and General Electric had successfully integrated fundamental research into their corporate laboratories, the Forest Hills laboratory remained the site of recurring tensions between two cultures of innovation—one based on fundamental science, the other on engineering research. Although such tensions often resulted in competing research strategies, managerial conflicts, and mismatched corporate priorities, the long-standing culture of engineering research contributed far more to Westinghouse’s strategic growth than even the most advanced fundamental research. More generally, the interactions between the cultures of engineering and science that characterize the early history of industrial research at Westinghouse highlight the evolving and sometimes conflicting patterns of technological innovation and organizational change in American industry before World War II.

show abstract

Competing Research Traditions in American Industry: Uncertain Alliances between Engineering and Science at Westinghouse Electric, 1886–1935

Kline

¹

,

Lassman²

2005

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Westinghouse Electric opened a new research laboratory near the company’s main factory in East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1916. Located in the suburban borough of Forest Hills, the laboratory was set up to provide scientific knowledge for the older materials testing and product development laboratories at the factory. Unlike its industrial counterparts, however, the Forest Hills laboratory was dominated by a strong engineering research tradition that disrupted efforts undertaken in the 1920s and again in the 1930s to build and sustain a diversified fundamental research program. Whereas Eastman Kodak, DuPont, AT&T, and General Electric had successfully integrated fundamental research into their corporate laboratories, the Forest Hills laboratory remained the site of recurring tensions between two cultures of innovation—one based on fundamental science, the other on engineering research. Although such tensions often resulted in competing research strategies, managerial conflicts, and mismatched corporate priorities, the long-standing culture of engineering research contributed far more to Westinghouse’s strategic growth than even the most advanced fundamental research. More generally, the interactions between the cultures of engineering and science that characterize the early history of industrial research at Westinghouse highlight the evolving and sometimes conflicting patterns of technological innovation and organizational change in American industry before World War II.

show abstract

Industrial Research with Some Notes Concerning its Scope in the Bell Telephone System

Cited by 4 publications

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The emergence of MP3 technology

The emergence of MP3 technology

Competing Research Traditions in American Industry: Uncertain Alliances between Engineering and Science at Westinghouse Electric, 1886–1935

Competing Research Traditions in American Industry: Uncertain Alliances between Engineering and Science at Westinghouse Electric, 1886–1935

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