Tuesday, October 21, 2003
Paper on social foundations of innovation Innovation is a social process
The discussion of economic innovation, education, etc is unremarkable, but this paper has an interesting social innovatio story in it:
set "in the east end of Montreal, where high school
drop out rates for young men are as high as 50 percent. About 15 years ago, Richard
Tremblay, a researcher at the University of Montreal, started a major long-term study.
He introduced a two-year program of counselling for six year-old boys and their families
to help the boys manage their anger and learn pro-social skills (Vitaro, Brendgen and
Tremblay, 1999 and 2001). The cost for each boy for the two years was $2000. Richard
has been tracking these boys, who are now in their early 20s. He also tracked a control
group of boys who had the same symptoms but did not receive the counselling.
To Richard’s surprise, there were no big differences between the two groups of boys for
several years. But by age 17, there were some remarkable differences. Drop out rates for
the boys who had received the counselling (11 percent) were half the average for the
control group. In addition, their track records on substance abuse, physical aggression,
vandalism, and theft were also much better. Dramatic differences in their pathways
through life have continued.
Now, you would think that with evidence like this, there would be a truly smart social
program here. But Richard tells me that there are no schools in Montreal that provide
this counselling. And drop-out rates are as high as ever.
These two anecdotes illustrate how much room there is for innovation in all parts of our
society. Innovations in the form of affordable housing and caregiver compensation could
have made all the difference to Nancy and her two daughters. And given the shortage of
nurses in Toronto these days, I suspect she would be fully employed today in the
profession for which she was trained.
Innovations in the form of counselling for six year-old boys who need it would help those
boys to avoid the risky social behaviours that lead them into a downward spiral, which
will be hard to reverse when these boys reach their late teens. An investment of $2000 at
ages 6 and 7 yields a high return in the form of more successful high school graduate
with choices about whether to study or work.
Innovation is a social process
The lack of innovation in social policy in Canada is obviously impoverishing some
people. But it is impoverishing our whole society because people like Nancy and those
boys do not get a chance to be productive members of their communities.
This is why I argue that innovation is a social process. As I said early on, there are social
dynamics at the root of almost all innovation through the social learning which occurs in
the workplace and in economic clusters. People interacting with each other create the
new ideas that lead to new products and processes to take to market. But innovation is
also a social process in the sense that the more we do to ensure that every citizen can live
up to their full potential, the greater our total economic potential will be. And the greater
will be the total well-being of Canadians as a collectivity.
Over the past 20 years, we have worked very hard as a country to put our economic house
in order. But over the same period, we have, slowly but surely, eroded the social
infrastructure which underlies innovation. For the people caught in this undertow, this
can lead to poverty and social distress. There are dead-weight costs associated with this
distress – the costs of welfare, health care, the justice system, and so on. Smart social
policy would avoid these dead-weight costs. It would make investments designed to
enable more Canadians to play the innovation game, and to cope with the periods of
misfortune associated with the double-edged economy...."
The discussion of economic innovation, education, etc is unremarkable, but this paper has an interesting social innovatio story in it:
set "in the east end of Montreal, where high school
drop out rates for young men are as high as 50 percent. About 15 years ago, Richard
Tremblay, a researcher at the University of Montreal, started a major long-term study.
He introduced a two-year program of counselling for six year-old boys and their families
to help the boys manage their anger and learn pro-social skills (Vitaro, Brendgen and
Tremblay, 1999 and 2001). The cost for each boy for the two years was $2000. Richard
has been tracking these boys, who are now in their early 20s. He also tracked a control
group of boys who had the same symptoms but did not receive the counselling.
To Richard’s surprise, there were no big differences between the two groups of boys for
several years. But by age 17, there were some remarkable differences. Drop out rates for
the boys who had received the counselling (11 percent) were half the average for the
control group. In addition, their track records on substance abuse, physical aggression,
vandalism, and theft were also much better. Dramatic differences in their pathways
through life have continued.
Now, you would think that with evidence like this, there would be a truly smart social
program here. But Richard tells me that there are no schools in Montreal that provide
this counselling. And drop-out rates are as high as ever.
These two anecdotes illustrate how much room there is for innovation in all parts of our
society. Innovations in the form of affordable housing and caregiver compensation could
have made all the difference to Nancy and her two daughters. And given the shortage of
nurses in Toronto these days, I suspect she would be fully employed today in the
profession for which she was trained.
Innovations in the form of counselling for six year-old boys who need it would help those
boys to avoid the risky social behaviours that lead them into a downward spiral, which
will be hard to reverse when these boys reach their late teens. An investment of $2000 at
ages 6 and 7 yields a high return in the form of more successful high school graduate
with choices about whether to study or work.
Innovation is a social process
The lack of innovation in social policy in Canada is obviously impoverishing some
people. But it is impoverishing our whole society because people like Nancy and those
boys do not get a chance to be productive members of their communities.
This is why I argue that innovation is a social process. As I said early on, there are social
dynamics at the root of almost all innovation through the social learning which occurs in
the workplace and in economic clusters. People interacting with each other create the
new ideas that lead to new products and processes to take to market. But innovation is
also a social process in the sense that the more we do to ensure that every citizen can live
up to their full potential, the greater our total economic potential will be. And the greater
will be the total well-being of Canadians as a collectivity.
Over the past 20 years, we have worked very hard as a country to put our economic house
in order. But over the same period, we have, slowly but surely, eroded the social
infrastructure which underlies innovation. For the people caught in this undertow, this
can lead to poverty and social distress. There are dead-weight costs associated with this
distress – the costs of welfare, health care, the justice system, and so on. Smart social
policy would avoid these dead-weight costs. It would make investments designed to
enable more Canadians to play the innovation game, and to cope with the periods of
misfortune associated with the double-edged economy...."
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