Resistance by vested interests to disruptive technological innovation limits growth, sustainability and the creation of quality jobs in more than two thirds of the US economy. While the United States has focused its innovation polices on breakthroughs that create frontier sectors like information technology and biotechnology, most of its economy is in legacy sectors defended by technological/economic/political/social paradigms that block competition from disruptive innovations that could challenge their models. This kills a major arena for innovation, affecting the bedrock of US competitivenes ... More

Resistance by vested interests to disruptive technological innovation limits growth, sustainability and the creation of quality jobs in more than two thirds of the US economy. While the United States has focused its innovation polices on breakthroughs that create frontier sectors like information technology and biotechnology, most of its economy is in legacy sectors defended by technological/economic/political/social paradigms that block competition from disruptive innovations that could challenge their models. This kills a major arena for innovation, affecting the bedrock of US competitiveness and its standard of living. The book uses a new, unifying conceptual framework to identify the shared features underlying structural obstacles to innovation in major legacy sectors: energy, air and auto transport, the electric grid, construction, health care delivery and higher education. Manufacturing production is a particularly important legacy sector requiring focus because manufacturing-led innovation is a critical but neglected stage in the innovation process. The offshoring of production has led to the new phenomenon of jobless innovation, whereby innovation in the US leads to production jobs abroad rather than at home and, over time, to diminished innovation capacity. The book looks abroad, finding comparable structural obstacles to innovation in the broad economic, political, legal and cultural context for innovation in European and Asian nations. To bring innovation to legacy sectors, the book details how policymakers could pay greater attention to all stages of innovation, from research through implementation, fill institutional gaps in the innovation system, and take measures to address structural obstacles to needed disruptive innovations.