ABSTRACT
The rise of these new science-related technologies has had major economic and social repercussions over and above the growth of professional industrial R&D. It changed not only the development procedures, but also the production engineering, the sales methods, the industrial training and the management techniques. Quite often the majority of employees in firms in the new industries were not employed in production or handling of goods at all, but in generating, processing and distributing information and knowledge. In the extreme cases the computer software or process plant design and consultancy firm may employ hundreds of people but have no physical output other than paper or computer printout. But even in quite 'normal' electronic or chemical firms, the combined employment in research, development, design, training, technical services, patents, marketing, market research and management may be greater than in production. The complexity of the technical information involved and of the data processing means that specialized information storage, handling and retrieval systems are increasingly necessary. One of the most successful firms in the global telecommunications industry, Ericsson, employed fewer than ten per cent of its workforce in production by the mid-1990s. This proliferation of 'nonproduction' occupations is often treated as a form of Parkinson's Law or conspicuous waste. Even a scientist-inventor such as Gabor (1964) treated it as unnecessary in economic terms (although perhaps desirable on social grounds). No doubt Parkinson's Law does operate and labour savings can be made in some of these occupations (as they can in production). But it is essential to this analysis that the major part of this growth is due to the changes in technology, and to the new forms of competition which this has brought about.
