Mark Jonathan Dodgson is an Australian academic and author. His research on the innovation process has influenced innovation management and policy worldwide.
Dodgson argues innovation management and policy depends on a comprehensive understanding of the innovation process and the ways it is changing. His early contributions on technology strategy identified the importance of focus and flexibility in technology investments and use. He conducted one of the first comprehensive studies of the emerging phenomenon of biotechnology firms by writing the history of the UK’s pioneering company, Celltech. As a result, he identified the importance of organizational and technological learning, and published a book in 1991 – The Management of Technological Learning – on Celltech, and several highly cited articles in the journals Organization Studies and Human Relations.
Early research
His research in the early 1990s led him to write one of the first books on how technology was developed collaboratively, between firms and between firms and research organizations. He identified the consequences of increased collaboration for managers and policy-makers in his 1993 book, Technological Collaboration in Industry. With Roy Rothwell, Dodgson edited one of the first comprehensive collections of writing on innovation in his Handbook of Industrial Innovation in 1994.
The influence of technology
Dodgson became increasing convinced about the way technology was itself changing the innovation process. With colleagues David Gann and Ammon Salter at Imperial College London, he identified the emerging role of ‘innovation technology’ – a basket of technologies used to increase the speed and efficiency of innovation. Innovation technologies include eScience; modelling, simulation and visualization tools; and rapid and virtual prototyping. The technologies were used in an innovation process typified as one involving ‘thinking’, ‘playing’ and ‘doing’. The book that resulted from this work – Think, Play, Do: Technology, Innovation and Organization – was the first to identify the role of play around emerging technologies to encourage innovation. Play includes experimenting, tinkering, and prototyping with new ideas. Studies of the impact of technology on innovation include virtual reality in IBM, the use of simulation technology in fire engineering, complex systems in cities, and in major infrastructure, including Heathrow Terminal 5 and Crossrail.
Innovation policy
His research on the innovation process has informed government policies in Europe, Asia and Latin America. His 1996 book with John Bessant – Effective Innovation Policy – identified the importance of intermediary organizations building bridges between business and the research base in nations. He has written on innovation policy in China and Taiwan, and in East Asia generally. Dodgson has advised the Australian Government on its innovation policy since 1987, and was an advisor to its 2008 Review of Australia's National Innovation System. With John Foster, Alan Hughes and Stan Metcalfe, he wrote an influential article on Australia's National Innovation System.
Recent work
Dodgson is author, with David Gann, of Innovation: A Very Short Introduction for Oxford University Press, now in its second edition. He continues his research on play, writing about playful work. In 2018, with David Gann, he published The Playful Entrepreneur: How to Adapt and Thrive in an Uncertain Times for Yale University Press. He has also published on the new challenges confronting universities, the consumption of innovation, digital money, and the life of Josiah Wedgwood.
