Читать книгу Innovation Economics, Engineering and Management Handbook 1 - Группа авторов - Страница 16

The recognition of the role played by innovation in economic growth has led to the proliferation of academic work and public policy tools on how to stimulate, generate, disseminate and measure innovation at the level of individuals (entrepreneurs, employees, managers, researchers, workers) and of collectives, as well as of the organizations and institutions that support them. Initially considered as the engine of innovation, the role of the entrepreneur was reduced during the years of strong growth, to the benefit of large companies, and has come back to the forefront since the end of the 20th century, but taking place in the meanders of the network company. Innovation systems are evolving. They are being configured and revisited from the structuring of an international scale to a more local scale. They are also sustainable, inclusive and able to play an active role in economic development. Innovation is, by definition, where it is not expected, in new paths and trajectories.

Economists have very quickly turned their attention to the double face of innovation, the one that initiates, generates and the one – the same one – that destroys. In both cases, the management of innovation and progress seemed to be in the hands of our societies, holding real power but marked by flagrant asymmetries. Controlling progress for (endogenous) growth requires substantial public investment to solidify the education, transport and health infrastructures that will be the basis of future growth. Yet public investment is often the first to be reduced as a result of austerity policies. The fragility of industrial society sometimes shatters, and the efforts made to control evolution and transform the pitfalls into progress seem to be reduced to nothing. Perhaps then, it is the definition of progress that is an issue, based for decades less on improving the living conditions of the greatest number of people than on the quest for short-term profit. Innovation, but to what end? Economists’ thinking should certainly be oriented towards this path, to better master the future.