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Title: Taking Technical Risks : How Innovators, Managers, and Investors Manage Risk in High-Tech Innovations by Lewis M. Branscomb, Philip E. Auerswald ISBN: 0-262-52419-8 Publisher: MIT Press Pub. Date: 01 September, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.95

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Summary: High-Tech Perils and Opportunities in the New Millennium
Comment: At the outset, I must say that this is one of the most intellectually challenging books I have read in recent years. The subtitle suggests that it examines "How Innovators, Executives, and Investors Manage High-Tech Risks" and indeed the authors of the assembled essays do indeed (collectively) provide that examination. The material is organized within six sections: Between Invention and Innovation, Defining Risks and Rewards, Institutional Differences: Large, Medium-Sized and New Firms, Overcoming Barriers, and finally The Changing Landscape. Lewis M. Branscomb and Philip E. Auerswald co-author the Introduction and then a discussion of each of the section subjects. As co-editors, they also include essays contributed by George C. Hartmann and Mark B. Myers in Part I), Henry Chesbrough and Richard S. Rosenbloom ("The Dual-Edged Role of the Business Model in Leveraging Corporate Technology Investments in Part II), James C, McGroddy ("Raising Mice in the Elephants' Cage" in Part III), F.M. Scherer and Dietmar Harhoff ("Technology Policy for a World of Skew-Distributed Outcomes" in Part IV), and finally, Mary L. Good ("Will Industry Fund the Science and Technology Base for the Twenty-First Century?" in Part V. Branscomb and Auerswald also provide an excellent "References" section as well as a brief but informative section "About the Contributors" in which the reader is guided to additional reference sources.

As Branscomb and Auerswald explain in their Preface, this book is the result of a joint Harvard-MIT Project on Managing Technical Risk sponsored by the Advanced Technology Program (ATP) of the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST). There were two workshops (on June 22, 1999 and then on September 17, 1999). Subsequently, Branscomb and Auerswald assembled a wealth of material (including the subsequent Report to NIST-ATP, "Managing technical Risk: Understanding the Private-Sector Decision Making Process. This book is a six-segment (or six-"chapter") essay co-authored by them, in combination with the five essays. "The chapters, though, are self-contained, so that they can be read sequentially without the contributed essays."

Later, in the Introduction, they explain that their objective is "to map the very specific boundary that lies between invention (an idea) and innovation (a product)....[in process exploring and developing several themes such as] successful innovations are rare, and the rewards must compensate for the risks; there are many ways to fail: technical risks and market risks are closely related; innovation themes are the key to resolving the tension between the rarity of success innovation and the need for a dependable sequence of innovations; there are serious financial, technological, and institutional gaps in the U.S. system of innovation; the pace of development is accelerating and is changing the innovation system; and government institutions, state and federal, must be seen as part of the fabric of social capital on which the innovation system rests." Obviously, no single essay (or even an extended essay such as that which Branscomb and Auerswald co-authored) can possibly address all or even most of these themes. The achievement of this book is that, to varying degrees, each of the contributors, including Branscomb and Auerswald of course) participates in a group collaboration to formulate the aforementioned "map." By the end of this remarkable book, is the map complete? No. Far from it.

In their concluding remarks, Branscomb and Auerswald suggest that, in the century now underway, "creative destruction will continue to be a public as well as private imperative. Yet we must recognize a serious political obstacle: the strong reluctance of some to having the federal government share private firms' costs for early-stage, research-based innovations. Schumpeter's phrase 'creative destruction' carries with it the implication that whenever there are innovation winners, there are likely to be losers -- losers who may complain to their political representatives if government agencies are seen as the instruments of their destruction, however creative it might be for the economy as a whole." Certain institutional deficiencies (both public and private) must be ameliorated so that the investment of the required energies and resources "will ensure continued innovative productivity for at least a century to come." Thanks to Branscomb, Auerswald, and their distinguished associates, public officials and corporate executives now have at least the beginning of a "map" to guide and inform what must be collaborative initiatives.

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