Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-75dct Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-08T06:05:35.263Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

When Knowledge Transfer Goes Global: How People and Organizations Learned About Information Technology, 1945–1970

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 February 2015

James W. Cortada
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article argues that an information ecosystem emerged rapidly after World War II that made possible the movement of knowledge about computing and its uses around the world. Participants included engineers, scientists, government officials, business management, and users of the technology. Vendors, government agencies, the military, and professors participated regardless of such barriers as languages, cold war politics, or varying levels of national economic levels of prosperity.

Type
Articles
Information
Enterprise & Society , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , March 2014 , pp. 68 - 102
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2013. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Business History Conference. All rights reserved.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bibliography of Works Cited

Books

Agar, John. The Government Machine: A Revolutionary History of the Computer. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003.Google Scholar
Aguirre, Jorge Carnota, Raúl. Historia de la Informática en Latinoamérica y el Caribe: Investigaciones y testimonies. Rio de Cuarto: Universidad de Rio Cuarto, 2009.Google Scholar
Aspray, William Campbell-Kelly, Martin Ensemenger, Nathan Yost, Jeffery R.. Computer: A History of the Information Machine, 3rd ed. Boulder, CO: Westview, 2013.Google Scholar
Baumol, William J. The Free Market Innovation Machine: Analyzing the Growth Miracle of Capitalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Beniger, James R. The Control Revolution: Technological and Economic Origins of the Information Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986.Google Scholar
Bird, P. J. LEO: The First Business Computer. Workingham, UK: Hasler, 1994.Google Scholar
Burke, Colin. Information and Secrecy: Vannevar Bush, Ultra, and the Other Memex. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Campbell-Kelly, Martin. ICL: A Business and Technical History: The Official History of Britain’s Leading Information Systems Company. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990.Google Scholar
Caminer, D. T. Aris, J. B. Hermon, P. M. Land, F. F.. LEO: The Incredible Story of the World’s First Business Computer. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1998.Google Scholar
Cave, Martin. Computers and Economic Planning: The Soviet Experience. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980.Google Scholar
Chandler, Alfred D. Jr. The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977.Google Scholar
Chandler, Alfred D. Jr. and Mazlish, Bruce, eds. Leviathans: Multinational Corporations and The New Global History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Coopey, Richard, ed. Information Technology Policy: An International History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Cortada, James W. Before the Computer: IBM, NCR, Burroughs, & Remington Rand and the Industry They Created, 1865–1956. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993.Google Scholar
Cortada, James W. The Computer in the United States: From Laboratory to Market, 1930 to 1960. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1993.Google Scholar
Cortada, James W. The Digital Hand, vol. 3. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004–08.Google Scholar
Cortada, James W. The Digital Flood: The Diffusion of Information Technology across the U.S., Europe, and Asia. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.Google Scholar
De Geer, Hans. På väg till datasamhället. Datatekniken I politiken, 1945–1963. Stockholm, Sweded: Royal School of Technology, 1992.Google Scholar
Dedrick, Jason Kramer, Kenneth L.. Asia’s Computer Challenge: Threat or Opportunity for the United States and the World? New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Deyo, Frederic C.ed. The Political Economy of the New Asian Industrialism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987.Google Scholar
Edwards, Paul N. The Closed World: Computers and the Politics of Discourse in Cold War America. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Flamm, Kenneth. Creating the Computer: Government, Industry, and High Technology. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1988.Google Scholar
Flamm, Kenneth. Targeting the Computer: Government Support and International Competition. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1987.Google Scholar
FUNDP NAMUR. Belgian Computing Literature. Brussels, Belgium: FUNDP NAMUR, 2008.Google Scholar
Gerovitch, Slava. From Newspeak to Cyberspeak: A History of Soviet Cybernetics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Glushkov, V. M. et al. Sergei Alekseevich Lebeder. Kiev: Naukova Durmka, 1978. Google Scholar
Goldstine, Herman H. The Computer from Pascal to von Neumann. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1972.Google Scholar
Gros, Eugene. Russian Books on Automation and Computers. London: Scientific Information Consultants, 1967. Google Scholar
Hachigian, Nina Wu, Lily. The Information Revolution in Asia. Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2003.Google Scholar
Hall, Peter Preston, Paschal. The Carrier Wave: New Information Technology and the Geography of Innovation, 1846–2003. London: Unwin Hyman, 1988.Google Scholar
Hanna, Nagy Boyson, Sandor Gunaratne, Shakuntala. The East Asian Miracle and Information Technology: Strategic Management of Technological Learning. Washington, DC: World Bank, 1996.Google Scholar
Headrick, Daniel R. Invisible Weapon: Telecommunications and International Politics, 1851–1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.Google Scholar
Headrick, Daniel R. The Tools of Empire: Technology and European Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981.Google Scholar
Heide, Lars. Punched-Card Systems and the Early Information Explosion, 1880–1945. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009.Google Scholar
Hinsley, F. H. Stripp, Alan, eds. Codebreakers: The Inside Story of Bletchley Park. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.Google Scholar
Impagliazzo, John Lundin, Per Wangler, Benkt, eds. History of Nordic Computing 3. Third IFIP WG 9.7 Conference, HiNC3, Stockholm, Sweden, October 18–20, 2010, Revised Selected Papers. Berlin: Springer, 2011.Google Scholar
Johnson, Chalmers. MITI and the Japanese Miracle: The Growth of Industrial Policy, 1925–1975. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995.Google Scholar
Lavington, Simon. A History of Manchester Computers, 2nd ed. Swindon: The British Computer Society, 1998.Google Scholar
Lindkkvist, Kent. Dataeknik och politik: Datapoliten I Sverige 1945–1982. Lund: Lund University Press, 1984.Google Scholar
Mahnken, Thomas G. Technology and the Americanization of War Since 1945. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008.Google Scholar
McKenna, Christopher D. The World’s Newest Profession: Management Consulting in The Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Monmonier, Mark. Spying With Maps: Surveillance Technologies and the Future of Privacy. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Mounier-Kuhn, Pierre E. L’informatique de la seconde guerre mondiale au Plan Calcul en France: L’émergence d’une science. Paris: Presses de U’université Paris-Sorbonne, 2010.Google Scholar
Nelson, Richard R. The Sources of Economic Growth. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Nelson, Richard R. Technology Institutions and Economic Growth. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Norberg, Arthur L. Computers and Commerce: A Study of Technology and Management at the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Company, Engineeering Research Associates, and Remington Rand, 1946–1957. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Norberg, Arthur L, and Jeffrey, R. Yost. IBM Rochester: A Half Century of Innovation. Rochester, MN: IBM Corporation, 2006.Google Scholar
Oyelara-Oyeyinka, Banji Rasiah, Rajah. Development: Innovation and Learning in Asia and Africa. Northampton, MA: Edward Elger Publishing, 2009.Google Scholar
Ottevanger, Wout van den Akker, Jan de Feiter, Leo. Developing Science, Mathematics, and ICT Education in Sub-Saharan Africa: Patterns and Promising Practices. Washington, DC: World Bank, 2007.Google Scholar
Parrott, Bruce. Politics and Technology in the Soviet Union. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1983.Google Scholar
Rattray, Gregory J. Strategic Warfare in Cyberspace. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001.Google Scholar
Redmond, Kent C. Smith, Thomas M. From Whirlwind to MITRE: The R&D Story of the SAGE Air Defense Computer. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Redmond, Kent C. Smith, Thomas M. Project Whirlwind: History of a Pioneer Computer. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1980.Google Scholar
Rogers, Everett M. Diffusion of Innovations, 5th ed. New York: Free Press, 2003.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, Nathan. Inside the Black Box. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, Nathan. Perspectives on Technology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976.Google Scholar
Rugman, Alan M.ed. The Oxford Handbook of International Business, 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.Google Scholar
Ruttan, Vernon W. Technology, Growth, and Development: An Induced Innovation Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Sichel, Daniel E. The Computer Revolution: An Economic Perspective. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1997.Google Scholar
Servan-Schreiber, Jean Jacques. Le Défi Américain. Paris: Denoél, 1967.Google Scholar
Stachowiak, H. Denken und Erkennen im kybernetischen Modell. Wien: Springer-Verlag, 1965, 1969.Google Scholar
Tofler, Alvin. Future Shock. New York: Random House, 1970.Google Scholar
van der Aa, H. J., ed. International Computer Bibliography: A Guide to Books on the Use, Application and Effect of Computers in Scientific, Commercial, Industrial and Social Environments, vol. 2. Amsterdam: Studiecentrum voor Informatica, 1968–1971.Google Scholar
Von Hippel, Eric. Democratizing Innovation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Watson, Thomas J. Jr. Petre, Peter Father Son & Co.: My Life At IBM And Beyond. New York: Bantam, 1990.Google Scholar
Werner, Steffen. Kybernetik Statt Marx?: Politische Ökonomie und marxistische Philosophie in der DDR unter dem Einflufs der elektronischen Datenverarbeitung. Stuttgart: Verlag Bonn Aktuell GMBH, 1977.Google Scholar
Wilczynski, J. Technology in Comecon: Acceleration of Technological Progress through Economic Planning and the Market. London: Macmillan, 1974.Google Scholar
Yates, JoAnne. Control Through Communication: The Rise of System in American Management. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989.Google Scholar

Articles, Pamphlets, and Essays

Akera, A. “Voluntarism and the Fruits of Collaboration: The IBM User Group, Share.” Technology and Culture 42 (2001): 710–36.Google Scholar
Aris, John. “Inventing Systems Engineering.” IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 22, no. 3 (2000): 4–15.Google Scholar
Auerbach, Isaac L. “European Electronic Data Processing: A Report on the Industry and the State-of-the-Art.” Proceedings of the IRE 49 (1961): 330–348.Google Scholar
Armer, Paul. “SHARE—A Eulogy to Cooperative Effort.” Annals of the History of Computing 2, no. 2 (April 1980): 122–129.Google Scholar
Ballantyne, Tony Burton, Antoinette. “Empires and the Reach of the Global.” In A World Connecting, 1870–1945, edited by Rosenberg, Emily S., 285–347. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2012.Google Scholar
Berenyi, I. “Computers in Eastern Europe.” Scientific American 223 (October 1970): 102–108.Google Scholar
Business Screen Magazine, 1938–1976.Google Scholar
Car, John W. III Perlis, Alan J. Robertson, James E. Scott, Norman R.. “A Visit to Computation Centers in the Soviet Union.” Communications of the ACM 2, no. 3 (1959): 8–20.Google Scholar
Computer Consultants, Ltd. European Computer Survey. London: Pergamon Press, 1968.Google Scholar
Cortada, James W. “How New Technologies Spread: Lessons from Computing Technologies.” Technology and Culture 54, no. 2 (April 2013): 229–61.Google Scholar
Datamation. “Datamation’s International Computer Census.” Datamation 8, no. 8 (August 1962): 46–8.Google Scholar
Davis, N. C. Goodman, Seymour E.. “The Soviet Bloc’s Unified System of Computers.” Computing Surveys 10, no. 2 (June 1978): 93–122.Google Scholar
De Bruijn, W. K.. “Recent Developments in the European Market.” Datamation 13, no. 12 (December 1967): 25–6.Google Scholar
Ensmenger, Nathan. “Letting the ‘Computer Boys’ Take Over: Technology and the Politics of Organizational Transformations.” International Review of Social History 48 (2003): 153–80.Google Scholar
Ensmenger, Nathan. “Power to the People: Toward a Social History of Computing.” IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 23, no. 1 (January–March 2001): 94–6.Google Scholar
Goodman, Seymour E. “Computing and the Development of the Soviet Economy.” In U.S. Congress, Joint Economic Committee, A Compendium of Papers Submitted to the Joint Economic Committee Congress of the United States, vol. 1. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1979.Google Scholar
Goodman, Seymour E. “Soviet Computing and Technology Transfer: An Overview.” World Politics 31, no. 4 (July 1979): 539–70.Google Scholar
Haigh, Thomas. “‘A Veritable Bucket of Facts’: Origins of the Data Base Management System.” ACM SIGMOD Record 35, no. 2 (June 2006): 33–49.Google Scholar
Haigh, Thomas. “Sources for ACM History: What, Where, Why.” Communications of the ACM 50, no. 5 (May 2007): 36–41.Google Scholar
IEEE Annals of the History of Computing.Google Scholar
Information and Culture: A Journal of History.Google Scholar
Judy, Richard W. The Riad Computers of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, 1970–1985: A Survey and Comprehensive Analysis. Indianapolis, IN: Hudson Institute, March 1986.Google Scholar
Khan, B. Zorina. “Selling Ideas: An International Perspective on Patenting and Markets for Technological Innovations, 1790–1930.” Business History Review 87, no. 1 (Spring 2013): 39–68.Google Scholar
Korzenoiwoski, Paul. “NCC Past to Present: A Barometer of Industry Progress,” Computerworld, July 8, 1985, p. Preview/8.Google Scholar
Land, Frank. “A Historical Analysis of Implementing IS at J. Lyons,” In Rethinking Management Information Systems, edited by Currie, W. G. Galliers, R. D., 310–325. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Library and Information History.Google Scholar
Majumder, D. Dutta. “Thoughts on Emergence of IT Activities in India.” In Computer Education in India, edited by Banerjee, Uptal K., 13–16. New Delhi: Concept Publishing Company, 1996.Google Scholar
Malinovsky, Boris N. Pioneers of Soviet Computing (published electronically), 2010. http://www.sigcis.org/files/malinovsky/2010.pdf.Google Scholar
O’Leary, T. F. Jr. “Guide.” In Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Engineering, edited by Ralston, Anthony Reilly, Edwin D. Jr., 670–1. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1983.Google Scholar
Prokhorov, Segei P. “Computers in Russia: Science, Education, and Industry.” IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 21, no. 3 (1999): 4–15.Google Scholar
Quah, Danny. “The Knowledge Economy and ICTs.” In The Oxford Handbook of Information and Communication Technologies, edited by Mansell, Robin Avgerou, Chrisanthi Quah, Danny Silverstone, Rogert, 34–219. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Rees, Mina. “The Mathematical Science and World War II.” American Mathematical Monthly 87, no. 8 (October 1980): 607–21.Google Scholar
Various bibliographies, 73 in number, Deutsche Forschungegemeinschaft—DFG (1954–1966).Google Scholar
Walther, Alwin. “German Computing.” Datamation 6 (September 1960): 27.Google Scholar
Wilkins, Mira. “The Role of Private Business in the International Diffusion of Technology.” The Journal of Economic History 34, no. 1 (March 1974): 166–88.Google Scholar
Zhang, Jiuchun Baichun, Zhang. “Founding of the Chinese Academy of Computing Technology.” IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 29, no. 1 (January–March 2007): 16–33.Google Scholar

Archival Sources

AT&T Archives, File 11-04-02-02.Google Scholar
Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. “Combined annuals indexes of the IEEE Annals of the History of Computing.”Google Scholar
IT History Society. http://www.ithistory.org.Google Scholar
Smithsonian Museum, National American History Museum, Mathematical Branch, Blackman Papers, Boxes 216–7.Google Scholar
Goodman Papers, Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.Google Scholar
IBM World Trade Corporation. Annual Report 1969. Paris: IBM World Trade Corporation, 1970, IBM Corporate Archives, Somers, NY.Google Scholar
“Russian Soviet and Eastern Bloc Computing Collection, 1956–1996” 48 boxes, CBI Record Group 148, Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.Google Scholar
Ware, W. H. “Soviet Computer Technology—1959.” Unpublished paper from Rand Corporation, Santa Monica, CA, March 1, 1960, Box 217, Computer Documentation Collection, Computers and Mathematics Collection, Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Wilson, Sarah. “Guide to the Computer Collections of Computing Manuals and Marketing Materials.” http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/accession/102634420.Google Scholar