Science, Technology and Innovation Culture

We are facing unprecedented challenges today. For many of us, innovation would be our last hope. But how can it be done? Is it enough to bet on the scientific culture? How can technical culture contribute to innovation? How is technical culture situated with regards to what we name collectively the culture of innovation? It is these questions that this book intends to address.

Table of Contents:
Introduction ix Marianne CHOUTEAU, Joëlle FOREST and Céline NGUYEN Chapter 1. A Brief History of European Technical Culture and Its Relationship with Innovation 1 Anne-Françoise GARÇON 1.1. Introduction 1 1.2. Technological development practices in the 16th Century 2 1.3. A new system of technology, but no innovation culture 3 1.4. But how did entrepreneurs achieve success before Schumpeter? 5 1.5. A “dashboard knowledge” culture to complement the operating cultures 7 1.6. When the “dashboard knowledge” culture becomes an innovation culture 10 1.7. Conclusion: what does the objectification of an innovation culture at the turn of the 19th–20th Century mean? 13 1.8. References 17 Chapter 2. When Innovation Culture Hides Technical Culture 21 Marianne CHOUTEAU, Joëlle FOREST and Céline NGUYEN 2.1. Introduction 21 2.2. Culture and technical culture 23 2.2.1. Culture or cultures? 23 2.2.2. Approaches to technical culture 25 2.3. Technical culture as we understand it 27 2.4. Why is technical culture still struggling to develop? 30 2.5. An innovation culture that acts as a barrier 32 2.6. Conclusion 36 2.7. References 37 Chapter 3. Technical Culture and the Contemporary World 41 Bruno JACOMY 3.1. Introduction 41 3.2. Technology and innovation in the digital age 42 3.2.1. Innovation and control over the future 43 3.2.2. Technology, innovation and culture 44 3.3. An approach to innovation in progress 45 3.3.1. A variable focal analysis 45 3.3.2. Objects in their surroundings 48 3.4. Innovation and evolution of technical objects 50 3.4.1. An innovative approach, with small steps and big jumps 51 3.4.2. Families of objects to understand evolution 52 3.4.3. The laws of evolution 54 3.4.4. Innovation in human history 55 3.5. Conclusion 56 3.6. References 57 Chapter 4. Industrialist and Inventor: Alfred Nobel’s Dynamite Invention 61 Sophie BOUTILLIER 4.1. Introduction 61 4.2. Alfred Nobel: the chaotic journey of an obstinate entrepreneur, somewhere between chance and necessity? 63 4.2.1. The invention of dynamite by Nobel or the archetype of serendipity? 63 4.2.2. Alfred Nobel between the company and the laboratory 65 4.3. The invention of dynamite: a well-anticipated chance 70 4.3.1. A favorable economic and institutional context 70 4.3.2. The invention of dynamite: chance and necessity 73 4.4. Conclusion 76 4.5. References 77 Chapter 5. Thinking Creatively to Innovate: A Study of the Genesis of a Mathematical Breakthrough by Cédric Villani 81 Joëlle FOREST, Marie-Line GARDES and Danièle VIAL 5.1. Introduction 81 5.2. Emergence of innovations according to Cédric Villani 84 5.2.1. A conception of innovation, inherited from the conception of Henri Poincaré’s mathematical invention 84 5.2.2. The seven ingredients of “innovation ideas” according to Cédric Villani 87 5.3. The strength of networks 91 5.3.1. A network of actors with varied knowledge 91 5.3.2. Contribution of the network of actors to the genesis of the theorem 93 5.4. Creative rationality: the forgotten ingredient 95 5.4.1. Creative rationality: what are we talking about? 95 5.4.2. Cédric Villani and creative rationality 96 5.5. Conclusion 97 5.6. References 98 Chapter 6. Innovation Culture in Organizations 101 Muriel DAVIES and Stéphanie BUISINE 6.1. Introduction: recent developments in the concept of innovation 101 6.2. Innovation culture in organizations 103 6.2.1. Innovative leaders and managers 103 6.2.2. Presence of innovative teams 104 6.2.3. Presence of innovative individuals 105 6.2.4. Organizational context 105 6.2.5. Links to the environment outside the organization 108 6.2.6. The ETOILe model of innovation culture 109 6.3. Discussion 110 6.4. References 112 Chapter 7. Technical Culture and Innovation Culture: Reconciling through Design 117 John DIDIER 7.1. Introduction 117 7.2. Technical culture 118 7.3. The culture contained in the technical object 119 7.4. Innovation culture 120 7.4.1. Training designers to generate technical and social innovation 123 7.4.2. Innovation in technical education 125 7.5. The training and transmission of a technical culture 126 7.5.1. Innovation in the learner’s role 127 7.5.2. From the technical object to the pedagogy of the project 128 7.5.3. The individual creator and designer of their project 129 7.6. Technical culture and knowledge creation 130 7.7. Conclusion 135 7.8. References 135 Chapter 8. Cultural Anthropology, Animism, and Industrial Innovation Processes: The Case of the “Animal Language” Myth 139 Fanny PARISE 8.1. Introduction 139 8.2. A collective unconscious faced with a diversity of material objects and cultures 140 8.3. An immersive approach, a vehicle for decentering 142 8.4. The experience of the cabinet of curiosities where the experience of writing is renewed 144 8.4.1. The technology behind a new form of animism 144 8.4.2. From a “show company” to the staging of innovation 145 8.4.3. Orality and writing as creative drivers 146 8.5. Mini-mythologies of modernity that fit into current societal issues 148 8.6. When technique meets mythology towards a first approach of materialization of modernity stories 151 8.7. From an anthropological perspective to a corporate innovation culture 153 8.8. References 154 Conclusion 161 Marianne CHOUTEAU, Joëlle FOREST and Céline NGUYEN List of Authors 165 Index 167