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A true history of industrial technology and innovation must factor in the history of labor and skill required to make a specific product. Mainstream perspectives on industrialization in Britain's cotton industry view technological change in spinning as motivated by productivity gains, facilitated by the fortuitous availability of high-quality, long-staple cotton. However, material evidence shows British cotton textiles advanced to match Indian cloth quality, suggesting that spinning machinery also evolved apace to achieve product quality. This article demonstrates that alongside the cotton staple, the spinner's skill and dexterity determined final cloth quality. The three main spinning machines were technically path dependent, with mechanized spinning of fine cotton based on the original Indian jersey wheel technology. Technological innovations mainly focused on improving product quality, with mechanization a means to bridge the British skill gap in cotton spinning. Histories of labor and skill are therefore at the heart of innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technological innovation continues to play a fundamental role in disrupting many industries, but the impacts of digital innovation on accountancy and its effect on firms and individuals remain somewhat overlooked. Nevertheless, technological innovation is transforming accountancy work and business models as firms react to competition and regulatory restrictions. The analysis of sixty semi-structured interviews with UK accounting firms reveals how the adoption of new technology and alterations in regulations impacts on accounting practices. In turn, this research raises questions about the nature of professional occupations, the deskilling of accountancy and colonization of new service areas, challenging the extant conceptualisation of knowledge-intensive services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews and brings together two literatures: classical political economists’ views on the skilling or deskilling nature of technological change in England, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when they wrote, are compared with the empirical evidence about the skill effects of technological change that emerges from studies of economic historians. In both literatures, we look at both the skill impacts of technological change and at the “inducement mechanisms” that are envisaged for the introduction of new technologies. Adam Smith and Karl Marx both regarded the deskilling of the labour force as the predominant form of biased technical change, but other authors such as Charles Babbage also took account of capital-skill complementarities and skill-enhancing effects of technological change. For Smith, the deskilling bias was an unintended by-product of the increasing division of labour, which in his view “naturally” led to ever more simplification of workers’ tasks. As opposed to Smith, Marx considered unskilled-biased technical change as a bourgeois weapon in the class struggle for impairing the workers’ bargaining position. Studies of economic historians lend support to Marx’s hypothesis about the inducement mechanisms for the introduction of unskilled-biased innovations, but have produced no clear-cut empirical evidence for a deskilling tendency of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century technological change as a whole. Industrialization in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries rather led to labour polarization, by simultaneously deskilling a large part of the workforce and raising the demand for some (but fewer) high-skilled workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the roles of institutions in facilitating or impeding the creation of new technological pathways in different countries. It is argued that the successful invention, innovation and diffusion of new technologies require the co-evolution of relevant institutions. It is argued that informal institutions, through their impact on people's beliefs, perceptions and consequential behaviour, crucially influence whether formal institutions coevolve with technological development and changing circumstances. At the same time, the rigidity of the pre-existing formal institutional arrangements impacts on whether agents can stimulate their co-evolution with the introduction of new technologies. These arguments are explored by comparing the creation of new wind power technologies in Britain and Germany since the 1970s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From approximately 1770 to 1850 Great Britain successfully completed the world's first Industrial Revolution. One of the main reasons for this was the country being endowed with extensive cheap coal supplies which not only provided cheap energy and a lucrative export trade but also acted as a stimulus to innovation in a wide range of industries well before 1770. The author explores these developments through early GB patents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Energy system scenarios and modelling exercises may under-represent the learning potential of emerging technologies such as marine energy. The research described here was devised to represent this potential, and thereby explore the possible role of marine energy in future energy systems. The paper describes a scenario for the accelerated development of marine energy technology, and the incorporation of this scenario into wider scenarios of UK energy system decarbonisation from now to 2050. The scenarios suggest that the accelerated development of marine energy could contribute significantly to the decarbonisation of energy supply in the UK, especially over the medium to long term. However, this is predicated on sustained innovation, learning and cost reduction over time. Encouragingly, a number of recently established policy support programmes are now beginning to stimulate the development of marine energy in Scotland, the UK and beyond. As the paper discusses, building on these initiatives, and ‘realising’ the accelerated development of marine energy, present a number of challenges, and will increasingly require international efforts. However, the potential rewards are very substantial. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The UK's National Physical Laboratory (NPL) has developed a range of advanced in situ diagnostic techniques to support research into mitigation strategies for critical PEM fuel cell (PEMFC) degradation mechanisms. Recent innovations include a new reference electrode configuration that for the first time allows mapping of the electrode potential across the active area of an operating PEMFC; a novel technique for simultaneous measurement of active catalyst area in each cell in a fuel cell stack; a world-first measurement of the relative humidity profile in the gas channels of a working PEMFC; and a non-invasive thermal imaging technique for detection of hotspots. In addition to providing valuable data on performance and durability, these in situ measurement techniques are being used to validate a 3D fuel cell model under development at NPL, a powerful design optimisation tool that will be available to industry in an accessible software platform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on economic historian Walt W. Rostow and his contributions to the historiography of industrialization and economic growth. He was born in 1916 and educated at Yale University. Three of his essential features of economic growth were, the propensity to develop fundamental science, the propensity to apply science to economic ends, and the propensity to accept innovations. Moreover, Rostow identified Great Britain as the first and subsequent model of industrial change. In addition, several arguments on the role of science, technology and industry are also offered.

This paper outlines in brief the development of Industrial Archaeology in Britain as a mainstream branch of archaeology over the last 50 years, before then reviewing some of the recent methodological developments in IA. The author argues that whilst Industrial Archaeology embraces both the archaeology of technology and the archaeology of industrialisation, it is the latter strand that is the defining feature of much modern IA work. A wide range of techniques emphasising both landscape and social change, linked to technological development, have been developed by those studying the phenomenon of British industrialisation since 1991. It is argued that the radical changes to the production, consumption, and urban nature of this newly industrialised society is best studied archaeologically through the medium of this new Industrial Archaeology. Furthermore, this social and landscape approach, coupled with the study of technological change, could be used to compare the different rates and geographical location of industrialisation around the globe from a distinctive archaeological perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the concerns of writer Anna Seward and mentor Erasmus Darwin on the effects of technological innovation integration with the industrialization concept in Coalbrookdale, Great Britain. Reference on the writings of Seward and Darwin regarding industrialization; Occurrence of pollution and destruction in the area; Details on Coalbrookdale.

This note investigates the importance of testing the validity of the Hicks-neutral technical progress assumption in the context of examining the substitutability or complementarity between capital, labor and energy in the UK industrial sector. It is found that the hypothesis of neutral technical progress must be rejected in favor of the non-neutral hypothesis: with technical progress thus biased to using both capital and energy but to saving labor. In addition, it is found that all three factors are substitutable for one another when non-neutral technical progress is modelled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Industrial research and development activity is often regarded as one of the important contributing factors to industrial growth and the purpose of this paper is to investigate some aspects of this research and development activity. Industrial research and development expenditure is treated as a particular type of industrial investment outlay and this approach raises several interesting questions. As a first step in answering these questions information was gathered from the private industrial sector using survey methods. This effort is reported in the first section. The second section of the paper presents annual estimates of private British industrial research and development investment, and related technical knowledge estimates for the period 1948-70. Very few data are available about the characteristics and amount of industrial research and development expenditure in Britain and this study may be of some use in overcoming this data deficiency. This work, however, is limited to research and development expenditure performed or financed by the private sector.

Focuses on the experience of Great Britain on capitalism and industrial development. Factors affecting the economic growth of Britain; Impact of technological innovations on the industrial revolution; Lessons from the experiences.

The process whereby innovations diffuse throughout an economy or throughout the world has interested many people at many times. One of the more intriguing examples of this process is the spread of the use of coke to make pig iron, which has interested investigators because of two seemingly incompatible properties. The use of coke in the blast furnace was one of the enabling innovations of the industrial revolution in Britain, and it played a similarly important role in the industrialization of many, if not all, other industrializing countries in the nineteenth century. Despite this importance, however, the spread of coke was not rapid, there was often a delay of as much as a half a century in the spread of this innovation from Britain to other countries. This article is based on economist Louis C. Hunter's masterful analysis and suggest some alterations in his hypothesis about the antebellum iron industry. This discussion has been concerned with changes in the production of pig iron and has discussed that part of the iron industry that made this material.

The article discusses management in Great Britain. The author notes its great potential for industrial development and technical innovation. He recognizes that the ideas and practices which characterize industry within Great Britain had been developed over several decades. He feels that, had the technological and scientific bases of business continued to expand at the pre-World War II rate, the culture of British industry would have been likely to adapt most effectively to the changes. Science and technology have had an unprecedented rate of growth from 1945 to 1970, as revolutionary ideas and practices promote a greater change over much shorter periods of time. An effective industry needs to have a culture that is highly adaptive to the technical innovations affecting it.

This article presents researches published in the March issue of the journal "International Journal of Production Research." Technological developments, particularly in the metal and plastics fields, are causing rapid changes in industrial methods and are the subject of research in many parts of the world. Although these are extensive research areas, the Board welcomes papers relating to any branch of technology, since the production research worker must be aware of trends in manufacturing techniques. According to the article, researches into organizational or human aspects of production are being conducted in only a few countries, at present, but there is evidence of a growing interest in these research areas in the technologically advanced nations. The work being done in these fields of study can, at the moment, only claim to be exploring small parts of them, and it is probable that any researcher undertaking studies would produce results of considerable interest. The editors would, therefore, urge research workers to submit their reports for wide dissemination and comment by others in the international context of this Journal.

The article discusses the necessity of infrastructure technology innovation for industrial competitiveness in Great Britain. It states that they form the basis of a successful innovation system which help knowledge flow across the economy, between researchers, businesses and government. It metnions that Great Britain is investing in infratechnologies because they help to develop a proof of concept, to demonstrate that the intended performance of a product is achievable.

Focuses on the fundamental role of professional institutions in encouraging the development of science and technology engineering in Great Britain. Challenges in creating enough energy for industrialization; Provision of a diverse program for members of technical professional events; Improvement of the key areas of engineering and technological innovation across the globe.