Where Science, Technology, And Profit Motive Meet

SCIENCE AND CORPORATE STRATEGY: Du Pont R&D, 1902-1980 David A. Hounshell and John Kenly Smith, Jr. Cambridge University Press; New York 731 pages; $34.50 Science, married to technology under the auspices of the corporate industrial research laboratory, has played a central role in the transformation of the U.S. economy in the 20th century. Yet, until the present book, there has never been a detailed, scholarly study of the history of a major U.S. industrial research program covering more than just its early years. The subject of this study is the research and development programs of a major U.S. corporation, E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., between 1902 and 1980. Du Pont was not only one of the earliest corporations to create research laboratories, but from these laboratories emerged a host of successful products, among them nylon, Dacron polyester, Orlon acrylic, Duco lacquers, neoprene synthetic rubber, cellophane, Mylar polyester film, Lycra spandex, Freon chlorofluorocarbon, and Teflon fluorocarbon polymer. The task of organizing the research history of a large, decentralized company, with a number of industrial divisions and literally thousands of research scientists and engineers working on numerous projects both in these divisions and in a central research facility was a formidable one. It is thus not surprising that the transitions between a few of the chapters are awkward. But generally Hounshell and Smith handle the problem of organization quite well. Their selection of case studies to illustrate Du Pont’s R&D history is good. The authors review commercial successes, like nylon and neoprene synthetic rubber, as well as commercial failures, like Corfam and Stabilite the impact of these successes and failures on Du Pont’s R&D strategy is nicely analyzed. Hounshell and Smith follow a number of key themes. For example, one of the pervasive themes is whether R&D work should be centralized or decentralized. Du Pont vacillated between the two options, depending on time and circumstances, first inclining toward centralization, then, after 1920, to- ward decentralization. Two related themes pursued throughout the work are how much emphasis should be placed on long-term, high-risk research versus short-term, tightly focused research and on fundamental research versus applied research. For the first two decades of corporate history, both long-term and shortterm research were pursued on an almost equal basis; one laboratory focusing on long-term projects, the other on short-term projects. Because it was easier for short-term, production-oriented research to demonstrate results, that type of research came to dominate in the 1920s and 1930s. The discovery of nylon and neoprene as a result of fundamental research projects around 1930 and their profitable commercialization, however, convinced corporate directors in the post-World War II era that Du Pont’s R&D efforts should be shifted more toward long-term and fundamental research. For a decade and a half, the company followed this policy, but Du Pont’s declining position in the late 1950s led to a shift away from basic research, back toward more applied projects. Hounshell and Smith also point out the importance of external factors in moulding Du Pont’s corporate strategy regarding R&D. Early in the century, they argue, the fear that antitrust legislation had closed off traditional means of dominating an industry by buying companies influenced Du Pont’s decision first to create industrial research laboratories and, later, between 1910 and 1920, to diversify and greatly expand the scope of the company’s research activities. Renewed Justice Department anti-trust activity in the 1940s convinced Du Pont’s executives that they could no longer diversify through the acquisition of companies and would have to depend on internal R&D work to develop new products and processes, leading to a steady increm in corporate R&D expenditures from World War II until the 1970s. The use of such unifying themes as centralization versus decentralization of research, fundamental versus applied research, long-term versus short-term research, and the influence of public policy on corporate research strategy, enable Hounshell and Smith to link a myriad of research activities in disparate industrial divisions into a satisfying, unified whole. Smith and Hounshell find “no single thesis” that can “explain the dynamic relationship between the corporation and the professional scientist throughout this century” Neither do they attempt to draw conclusions from Du Pont’s experience and apply them to industry as a whole. Nonetheless, they do reach several important conclusions. For example, Du Pont has long been seen by the general public as a company that has achieved success through basic research—a picture promoted by the discovery of nylon and neoprene and by the company’s “Better Things for Better Living through Chemistry” advertising. But this book suggests that, if anything, nylon and neoprene were exceptions, not the rule. Most of Du Pont’s important new products did not emerge from Du Pont’s basic science research. In fact Du Pont’s effort to develop “new nylons” in the post-World War II era through concentration on basic research was judged a failure by the company in the early 196Os. The most serious deficiency in the book is the authors’ failure to place the history of Du Pont as deeply in the context of the chemical industry as they could have. The authors note, for example, that Du Pont resisted integration forward into the consumer sector for fear of arousing the antagonism of the customers for their chemicals. They point out that World War II undermined N Pont’s proprietary and competitive position in several areas where they had enjoyed wide margins of leadership. And they observe that after World War II, Du Pont chose to avoid government contracts. But they fail to clarify the behavior of other major U.S. chemical companies in these, and other, areas. Although histories providing the depth of this book do not exist, Hounshell and Smith could still have made wider use of existing corporate histories to place Du Pont more in its chemical industry context. Despite this reservation, Science and Corporate Strategy is a very good book it provides the best account we have of the critical issues involved when science operates in a corporate environment. Terry S. Reynolds is professor of the history of technology in the Science, Technology and Society Program at Michigan Tech, Houghton, Michigan.

Where Science, Technology, And Profit Motive Meet

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