How did the General Purpose Technology ’Electricity’ contribute to the Second Industrial Revolution (I): The Power Engines.

Working paper (2016)

Authors

B.J.G. van der Kooij

Innovation Technological innovation Cluster of innovation History of technology General purpose technology

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Published Date

2016

Language

English

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Abstract

The concept of the General Purpose Technology (GPT) of the late 1990s is a culmination of many evolutionairy views in innovation-thinking. By definition the GPT considers the technical, social, and economic effects of meta-technologies like steam-technology and electric technology. This paper uses Schumpeter’s concept of ’cluster on innovations’ to create insight in the nature of these GPT’s. Three case studies are presented: ’The invention of the Steam Engine’, ’The invention of the Electromotive Engine’ and ’The invention of Electric Light’. For the GPT-Steam and the GPT-Electricity, the power technologies, we found that these inventions— better ’clusters of innovations’— were the core elements in the technical contributions to both Industrial Revolutions. It were the innovations in applications of electricity—like in electric light and electric appliances— that made ’electricity’contribute so greatlly to the Second Industrial Revolution.

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