Center for Science, Technology, and Economic Development (CSTED) > Selected Reports

Introduction

This protocol is intended to help prepare you for the personal interviews you will conduct and actually serve as a detailed interview guide during the course of those interviews. The richness and detail gained from the few personal interviews conducted to date suggest that personal interviews will be more important than we had envisioned, and telephone interviews perhaps less so, with the latter serving primarily as gap filling, triangulation on matters of disagreement or controversy, and confirmation of major, preliminary propositions about the influence of particular players in each case.

These personal interviews must develop information about how the enabling technologies were developed and came together to constitute the innovation being studied, and the information must reflect what we've learned about the innovation process. To review some of the salient points about the process that we must reflect in our cases, the interviews must cover the following general topics (specific questions come later in the protocol):

• We must identify "nodes," points at which particular technical solutions to problems, knowledge inputs, financial support, or other resource inputs entered the flow of information and technology.
• We will ask respondents to scale the importance of these inputs to the innovation (e.g., were alternatives available? Was this input unique, a breakthrough in its own right?).
• We must actively ask respondents for background on knowledge and technical inputs they describe, and explicitly for the basis for a particular choice of technical inputs or information: was it known to be a likely solution because of a known failure of an alternative solution? We must trace these "dead ends" if they are identified, score them as potentially significant knowledge/technical inputs, and trace their origins.
• Innovations occur because technical solutions are achieved but also because organizational, managerial, coordinating, and other nontechnical inputs appear at critical points. We must be sensitive to the possibility that NSF and other contributors influence the course of the innovation through other than knowledge, technology, or the financial support for them.
• Interviews must include all major contributors to the innovation at all stages up to and including manufacturing and commercial introduction, if appropriate. We must identify all significant inputs from the existing knowledge and technology base, as well as new research activity generated because of downstream problems with the innovation process.

Nils and I found the following diagram to be useful in guiding our own approach to our interviews, but also (in some cases) as a "show card" to illustrate graphically to a respondent what kinds of information we were seeking. You might find this useful as a supplement to the Project Summary and Summary Protocol you should send in advance to respondents (see below).

Note that this scheme shows that existing and prior knowledge, including dead ends and false starts, are important to enabling technologies, and that these efforts have a prior history that might include NSF. Note also that the contributions include knowledge, technology, financial support, managerial or organizational support (e.g., coordination), and infrastructure support (e.g., travel, colloquia, databases). It doesn't show that the people and institutions involved could have contributed at any point in the innovation process from conception to commercial introduction.

Procedures

Once you have identified a person to be interviewed, I suggest that you write or fax them a letter introducing yourself and the study, include the Project Summary, and indicate that you'll be calling shortly to set up a time for a personal interview. Once the interview has been scheduled, send them a copy of the Summary Protocol, and perhaps the above diagram if you wish, so that they know what kinds of questions you'll be asking.

Having two people conduct the interview is highly desirable. Either Nils or I could serve as your second. Follow the protocol closely to ensure that you have obtained all the information we need for the case. Be sure to obtain their mail address and phone number and/or e-mail address, for the follow-up thank you letter, for filling any gaps or ambiguities later by phone or e-mail, and so we can send them a copy of the case in draft form for their review.

Questions

In some cases your respondent will be a major contributor to the innovation; in others he/she will be a highly informed observer. The protocol is set up to pose a set of questions to you, the interviewer (following Robert Yin), rather than to the respondent. It calls for information that cannot be obtained from a single respondent. The questions can be answered only after multiple people have been interviewed; each will fill in different pieces of the story.

The protocol assumes that the focus of interviews is a person who has made a major contribution to, or is highly informed about, a specific enabling technology. Some interviews will focus farther downstream in the innovation process, after the innovation has been "put together" and is being further developed or manufactured. You will have to make adjustments accordingly.

Who were the key individual contributors (people) to the enabling technology, and when did their contributions occur?

For each person identified, what was the nature of their contribution?

• Knowledge (e.g., informational solution to problem)
• Technology (e.g., technological solution to a problem)
• Organizational/managerial (e.g., coordination, consensus-building)

How significant was each person's contribution to the eventual success of the innovation?

Likert scale suggested:

5 - Crucial: at the time, no one else was in a position to make this kind of contribution, at least for the foreseeable future.

4 -

3 - Modest: important contribution, but others were in a position to make a similar contribution eventually. Without person X's contribution, the progress of the innovation would have been delayed significantly.

2 -

1 - Not very important: several alternative sources of knowledge/technology were available at the time, and if person X had not been there, someone else would have stepped in quickly.

Where, institutionally, was each major contributor when he/she made the contribution?

What sources of support were available to each major contributor at the time he/she made the contribution: NSF specifically, but other sources as well?

Types of support to ask about explicitly:

• (Traditional) research
• Travel for conferences
• Purchase or construction of equipment
• Research Initiation Grants
• Foreign travel
• Conferences, workshops
• Presidential Young Investigator awards
• Research Opportunities for Women
• Center support: Industry-University Cooperative Research Centers; Engineering Research Centers

Research Support for Minorities:

• Resource Center for Science and Engineering
• Minority Research Initiation Program, including Research Improvement in Minority Institutions

How important was NSF's support to each key participant's contribution?

Suggest Likert scale similar to one above:

5 - Crucial: at the time, no other institution was in a position to make this kind of contribution, at least for the foreseeable future.

4 -

3 - Modest: important contribution, but others were in a position to make a similar contribution eventually. Without NSF's contribution, the progress of the innovation would have been delayed significantly.

2 -

1 - Not very important: several alternative sources of support/coordination were available at the time, and if NSF had not been there, another agency or organization would have stepped in quickly.

What other important knowledge, experience, or results were "in the air" at the time key contributors made their contributions, that they drew upon or were influenced by? (Refer explicitly to negative information such as what didn't work, what to avoid.)

How significant was this influence? If it was significant, who generated it? (This calls for further interviews using this protocol as a guide.)

What was each key contributor's "prior history"? In particular, where did they obtain their graduate education? What is their employment history up to the point at which they made their key contribution?

While in higher education, what were the sources and types of support for each contributor's research (including graduate research assistantships)?

Ask specifically about NSF and other agency support for the following:

• (Traditional) research
• Travel for conferences
• Purchase or construction of equipment
• Research Initiation Grants
• Foreign travel
• Conferences, workshops
• Presidential Young Investigator awards
• Research Opportunities for Women
• Center support: Industry-University Cooperative Research Centers; Engineering Research Centers

Research Support for Minorities:

• Resource Center for Science and Engineering
• Minority Research Initiation Program, including Research Improvement in Minority Institutions

How important was NSF support to each key contributor's graduate education?

Suggest a Likert scale:

5 - Crucial: at the time, no other institution was in a position to make this kind of contribution, at least for the foreseeable future.

4 -

3 - Modest: important contribution, but others were in a position to make a similar contribution eventually. Without NSF's contribution, the progress of the research (or other activity) would have been delayed significantly.

2 -

1 - Not very important: several alternative sources of support were available at the time, and if NSF support had not been available, it would have been relatively easy to obtain support elsewhere.