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Contemporary life is replete with all manner of rankings, metrics, and benchmarks (Power, 1997; Espeland & Stevens, 1998). From J.D. Power evaluations of cars to Zagat restaurant reviews to US News and World Report ratings of colleges and universities, modern life seems to be deep in the grip of assessment and evaluation. In the early decades of the twentieth century, the introduction of scientific management transformed the workplace, altering relations between labor and capital, and embedding control over the nature and pace of work into the technical organization of production (Edwards, 1979; Shenhav, 1995). In a similar fashion, the current embrace of rankings may reflect a new “Taylorism,” as metrics have the capacity to not only reorder the social institutions they are purported to assess, but also provide a patina of objectivity, especially for the uninitiated.

Measuring the economic and social impact of innovation is a nontrivial act. Using an embedded analysis method this paper examines the Grameen Bank and Microsoft Corporation as examples of social and commercial entrepreneurship. Both organizations embraced radical innovation that was scaleable and created wealth. They also both had profound economic and social impact on the world.

Drawing on examples from the more developed realms of technology transfer and other “managerial professions” (Rhoades, 1998; Rhoades & Sporn, 2002) in the academy, this paper explores possible organizational sites for housing protocols for the measurement of the social value of individual innovations in higher education (that may enter the market or and augment or precede commercial valuation), and the possible implications of those different settings for the academy (particularly in terms of motivating more faculty to engage in more innovative and entrepreneurial activities). Organizational location matters. Organizational site is related to professional perspective and to the institutional outlook that attaches to various sorts of work in the academy. Five possible sites are explored, analyzing the dimensions of such locations from the experience of other “new” activities in universities. One type of site consists of an interstitial (Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004), nonacademic, support unit of managerial professionals (neither faculty nor senior level administrators), as in an Office of Technology Transfer or an Office of Institutional Research. A second type of site would be an academic unit in which measurement tasks could be performed by faculty members. A third type of site would be a hybrid model that combines elements of the first two models, as in the case of entrepreneurship units in many universities. A fourth possible type of site would be to situate such activity in an intermediating association (Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004) outside of the university, which mediates between public and private sectors, and that promotes various sorts of innovation and measurement as in the case of Educause and innovative information technologies. A fifth type of site would consist of establishing university extension units in the community, to provide services more directly to constituents, as traditionally was the model for agricultural extension in land grant universities. Each of the models has its owns benefits and challenges, its implications for what sorts of professionals would be doing the work and what they would see their principal function as being, and for the impact they would have on the academic workforce and the institution's direction.

An innovation's social value depends on various factors that are independent of how the particular innovation is used with other technologies. Examples of such factors are the size of the market the innovation will serve and the manner in which the innovation is managed. However, an innovation must often be implemented with complementary inventions whenever it is exercised and its benefits are realized. In such cases, an innovation's value depends, in part, on the ownership structure of the related inventions. This paper makes its contribution by examining how an innovation's social value is affected when it must be applied in concert with other essential inventions. In this paper, I propose a measure that helps predict an innovation's social value. I also suggest a practical procedure to implement this measure and I evaluate a key feature of this procedure.

Colleges and universities play a vital role in the creation and dissemination of the innovations that feed the knowledge economy. First, universities carryout a significant portion of the basic research that is conducted in the United States. In 2006, the National Science Foundation reported having awarded $30 B in research-based funding to colleges and universities (National Science Foundation, 2007). While this figure is not an indicator of innovation output, the number helps to demonstrate the scope of research activity that is occurring within the academy. Mansfield (1995) noted that government funding for university research is bent toward science that holds commercial potential and highlighted that such research is likely to produce a high amount of social benefits. Mansfield also concluded that measuring the social returns of university-born (and federally funded) innovations though difficult, is important. Second, universities are instrumental in the production of economically relevant human capital, including students trained in key science and technology disciplines (Leslie & Brinkman, 1988). Audretsch (2007) indicates a highly educated workforce that is capable of creating and moving innovative technologies into the marketplace is a critical component of the current entrepreneurial economy. Also, faculty who intersect industry through consulting and other commercial-related activities make valuable contributions to the economic growth and prosperity of communities, regions, and beyond. In short, colleges and universities are key contributors to the production and function of the innovations that largely drive the knowledge economy.