I have started reading "Knowledge and Competitive Advantage: The Coevolution of Firms, Technology, and National Institutions" by Johann Peter Murmann. My first impressions are of intelligence and almost a child-like enthusiasm in the writer. He tries to "woo" all audience, trying his best to be agreeable (the way he tries to explicitly and elaborately tries to disassociate himself with biological aspects of coevolution is a case in point). Another aspect of worry is that the writer evaluates the growth of industry only till 1914, the eve of WWI. This would give a distorted picture of evolution as it squarely ignores an important aspect: political risk. Sometimes the national institutions that are responsible for a country's rise also contribute to its downfall. This important dynamics of power is squarely ignored. There is a difference between achieving progress and in sustaining the progress, I feel. Nevertheless, the book may prove valuable in understanding the basics of coevolution theory and enable the reader to develop a different way of viewing industrial progress. The book also promises to shed some light on the development of patent laws and their application in UK, US and Germany. The writer also intends to study the subject post WW1 in some future book.
The first thing that I gathered is the concept of "initiator" and "replicator" used to define a coevoluting system. Initiator is the actor that actually interacts with the environment (the manager, employees etc.) and the replicator is a unit that is being replicated in the environment, is responsible for affecting the actors and plays a crucial role in survival (genes, company culture). I also came to know why purple is considered a royal color: before synthetic dyes the color was from a natural dye called Tyrian Purple. This was very expensive and hence only the rich and the royalty could afford it. Hence the association of purple with royalty. The writer goes on to explain the major technical innovations and changes that led to the growth of the synthetic dye industry, and the way this led to the gradual extinction of the natural dye industry. It also explains how and why R&D laboratories came to dominate the industry and lone inventors were not as effective on their own: it is one thing to invent something and another thing to be able to get commercial value out of it. It required not only the traditional investment in marketing and distribution but also persistent effort to make the production process cheaper, reliable and mechanized. This translated into huge costs that could not be afforded by a single individual. This reinforces the observation that capital-intensive industries with small product life-cycles are best served by big companies run by professional managers.
The first thing that I gathered is the concept of "initiator" and "replicator" used to define a coevoluting system. Initiator is the actor that actually interacts with the environment (the manager, employees etc.) and the replicator is a unit that is being replicated in the environment, is responsible for affecting the actors and plays a crucial role in survival (genes, company culture). I also came to know why purple is considered a royal color: before synthetic dyes the color was from a natural dye called Tyrian Purple. This was very expensive and hence only the rich and the royalty could afford it. Hence the association of purple with royalty. The writer goes on to explain the major technical innovations and changes that led to the growth of the synthetic dye industry, and the way this led to the gradual extinction of the natural dye industry. It also explains how and why R&D laboratories came to dominate the industry and lone inventors were not as effective on their own: it is one thing to invent something and another thing to be able to get commercial value out of it. It required not only the traditional investment in marketing and distribution but also persistent effort to make the production process cheaper, reliable and mechanized. This translated into huge costs that could not be afforded by a single individual. This reinforces the observation that capital-intensive industries with small product life-cycles are best served by big companies run by professional managers.
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