This book explores how a long-term innovation can take place based on
historical analyses of the development of reverse osmosis (RO) membrane
from the early 1950s to the mid-2010s. The RO membrane is a critical
material for desalination that is a key to solve water shortages
becoming serious in many places of the world.
The authors conducted in-depth field studies as well as analyses of rich
archival data to demonstrate how researchers, engineers, managers,
entrepreneurs, and policymakers interacted each other for this material
innovation to be realized. A series of historical analyses in this book
uncovered that initial government supports, strategic niche markets,
emergence of breakthrough technology, and company-specific rationales
played significant roles for companies to overcome four types of
uncertainty, technological, market, competition, and
social/organizational ones, and enabled the companies to persistently
invest in the development and commercialization of the RO membrane.
This book depicts that innovation does not arise on a sudden, but that
it is actualized through long lasting process with turns and twists,
which is driven by many non-economic rationales beyond economic motives.