Allen(1977). Managing the flow of technology: Technology transfer and the dissemination of
technological information within the R&D organization. Cambridge, Mass. MIT Press.
Chapter 3(pp.35-57)
Kyutae Kwak
(Graduate School of Management of Technology, Ph. D Student)
■ Summary
The action of treating the two different concepts can cause lots of confusion to the science-technology
policy and technology innovation without differentiating. Through the theoretical consideration, the
author, in detail, argues that several factors in the nature of science and technology such as the value,
orientation, the nature of profession activities, education level, and so on are in different. Especially
the communication pattern between science and technology describes quantitatively and qualitatively
very different. However, the author describes that the movement and the nature of science and
technology may differ in concept, but relationship between the technological development and
scientific development are constantly in mutual(two-way) interaction, rather than independently
deployed on which well described in the flow of information. The author applied the terminology
'Gap-filling Science' to explain the immediate interaction of communication between science and
technology. When the interaction is actively in progress, the science and technology communication
interact rapidly and directly, at the same time, it is also claimed that the scientific and technological
development would expedite the innovation due to the lack of time-lag.
■ Main contribution
1. The theoretical consideration of information flow in science and technology and different attribute
between science and technology communications, can be highly appraised as a good attempt because
that the author did not separate the science and technology as a two different concepts, rather, treated
as a interrelation concepts.
2. The author fully considers about the questions of the nature of science and technology such as who
the medium of technology flow is, what the object of technology transfer is and the related problems
about the time of technology transfer. Above all, the author provides the turning point of cognition
from the one-way relation between science and technology to two-way interaction. Also considering
about the published time of the study, user oriented relationship meant to be very innovative idea.
3. To prove that the science and technology communications are in differ, the author practically
analyzed the comparative study on the scientific papers and technological projects. Also the author
provided the quantitative result about what assigned time amounts are different in communication
channel and two different groups that scientists and engineers use.
4. The author, above all, provides the cognition path to readers to cognize that the relation between
science and technology are the two-way interaction. With the understanding of ambidextrous
characteristic of R&D which represent for the exploration and exploitation, these two, science and
technology that are in the correlation, are reminded as important to manage appropriately in order for
the innovation.
■ Critique
1. The author, by bring the differentiation into relief, gave a point that the interaction between science
and technology mighty be more complicate and delicate than ordinary thinking. However, it seems
that additional study would be needed in the perspective of information and knowledge that deal with
the science and technology. The author in this study maintains the point of that the relationship
between science and technology to understand the original characteristics of science and technology.
However, the study, on the other hand, does not imply any detailed information about the aspect of
practical science and knowledge-based technology. Particularly, it seems that the stage of study is not
far enough to explain the understanding of characteristics of tacit knowledge.
2. What if the author had an additional discussion about the origin of science and technology in this
study? I wonder which of one between science and technology came first in the history of man,
science or technology. This kind of grounds for an argument rather explains better for the critical
point appropriately that in the traditional science and technology, it only flows one way another.
3. The author insists that science and technology, in terms of communication pattern, have a
qualitatively and quantitatively very different pattern. However, such insistence, information
transferring and sharing is under the assumption that comes basically from the personal contact. When
the tie that the author write the book, neither the communication channels nor subjects were varied.
However, due to the development of digital media technology in current, both of communication
channels and the subjects are diversified. Also, development of digital storage and transmitting
technology allowed having a real time communication in a long distance. Therefore, the
communication pattern that introduced in the book does not fully explain the current. In terms of
knowledge transfer and flow matters, especially, engineers did not subordinated in localism for
gaining and sharing the information. Also, current communication method which is representative for
the SNS activation and internet collective intelligence, got over the just the communication between
scientist and engineer in terms of understanding the flow of information. Current communication
method rather be magnified the importance of ordinary users. Also, it is thought to be that the
information flows are in very complicated network and the trigger for the innovation can be much
diversified.
4. Lastly, the author hypothesized in his book that the border line should be distinctive between
science and technology. Such insistence, which mentioned previous, generally did not concede the
practical science and knowledgeable technology, rather thought to be the result for the conceptual
approach between theoretical science and practical technology. However, is it possible to assort
clearly in between science and technology, science and engineering? For instance, is Dr. Woo-Suk,
Hwang a scientist or technician? What is the standard in between pure research and applied research?
What I think is that sometimes, in some areas, the convergence between science and technology
already internalized that represent the ambidexterity in some aspect.