ABSTRACT

In Chapters 3 and 4 we have illustrated the changes in the pattern of innovation which took place in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The inventor–entrepreneur or the inventor collaborating with an entrepreneur in a business partnership increasingly gave way to the professional R&D department. In the fastest growing industries, such as oil, steel and electrical products, some very large firms emerged, profiting from scale economies in production, marketing and finance, as well as in R&D. A very similar pattern also emerged in the chemical industry which was to become one of the most R&D intensive industries. The new R&D departments often collaborated with independent inventors, universities and government institutes, but the inhouse R&D laboratories became characteristic institutions of the industry. Small firm innovation certainly did not disappear but its relative importance declined. In this chapter, we concentrate on one of the fastest growing sectors of the chemical industry which was also one of the most research intensive – synthetic materials.