Education for Innovation: Entrepreneurial Breakthroughs vs. Corporate Incremental Improvements

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This paper explores the following hypotheses on the appropriate education for innovating entrepreneurship: a) breakthrough inventions are contributed disproportionately by independent inventors and entrepreneurs, while large firms focus on cumulative, incremental (and often invaluable) improvements; b) education for mastery of scientific knowledge and methods is enormously valuable for innovation and growth, but can impede heterodox thinking and imagination; c) large-firm R&D requires personnel who are highly educated in extant information and analytic methods, while successful independent entrepreneurs and inventors often lack such preparation; d) while procedures for teaching current knowledge and methods in science and engineering are effective, we know little about training for the critical task of breakthrough innovation.

Published: William J. Baumol, 2005. "Education for Innovation: Entrepreneurial Breakthroughs Versus Corporate Incremental Improvements," NBER Chapters, in: Innovation Policy and the Economy, Volume 5, pages 33-56 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

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