THE CONTINUING, WIDESPREAD (AND NEGLECTED) IMPORTANCE OF IMPROVEMENTS IN MECHANICAL TECHNOLOGIES

Rosenberg's historical analyses of the varying sources and directions of technological change are confirmed by contemporary bibliometric data, in particular: (1) the growth of science-based technologies developed mainly in the R&D laboratories of large firms; (2) more pervasive improvements in production methods based on mechanical technology. The considerable importance of the latter has persisted well into the late twentieth century, but has been neglected in analysis and policy. Greater attention, in particular, should be paid to: - more refined measures of technological activities than R&D classified by large firms' principal product groups; - the cumulative and complementary (rather than displacing and competitive) nature of successive 'technological paradigms'; - the central role of mechanical, instrumentation and software technologies in the decentralised and continuous improvements in products and production methods.