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The purpose of this paper is to illustrate, through the example of the Springfield Armory and its role in the development of interchangeable parts, the critical role of government in establishing a cluster of organizations that evolved into an innovation ecosystem primarily located in the Connecticut River Valley in the 1800s. Using the Springfield Armory example, we use the related but largely unjoined concepts of ecosystem and networks to show that these organizational forms are effective in driving innovation.

The design uses an in-depth analysis of the role of the Springfield Armory to explicate the joining of network and ecosystem theory as an early example of the importance of governmental funding and support for innovation.

The development of interchangeable parts in the American arms industry in the 19th century transformed manufacturing worldwide. At the heart of this transformation was the network of arms makers that developed in the Connecticut River Valley as a direct result of US Government investment and support. This network of arms makers evolved into an ecosystem of mutually reinforcing relationships as machine tool manufacturers benefited from an environment of free-flowing intellectual property, information and growing governmental demand for arms. The Armory illustrates the government’s role in initiating and sustaining clusters of innovation that otherwise might not have developed as quickly.

Much of the research on the role of government in creating innovation ecosystems and organizational networks is based on modern organizations. This use of the Springfield Armory in the early 1800s broadens the knowledge on how innovation ecosystems in conjunction with networked organizations can be created by governments serving the public good.

Interchangeable parts were a critical development in the advancement of industry and manufacturing. This paper traces its development, the factors that contributed to it, and answers the question of why did this innovation occur at the Springfield Armory.

This is an illustrative case study.

The fortunate combination of location, key people, government policy, and arms demand combined to enable the development of interchangeable parts at the Springfield Armory. Led by its Superintendent, Roswell Lee, Springfield became the epicenter for the development of this concept as skilled gunmakers captured arms making knowledge unfettered by patent protection. Lee promoted this free interchange of ideas through sharing designs and equipment, his hiring practices, and his willingness to experiment with new tools and technologies. This created a critical mass of factors that led to this important innovation occurring at the Springfield Armory.

The critical drivers of innovative activity seen at Springfield merit further investigation and research, individually and collectively to see if these findings can be used to inform policies that promote innovation.

This case study identifies factors that contributed to the development of interchangeable parts at a particular location at a particular point in time. The value of this is to identity the important interplay of factors that can spur the innovative process and lead to important technological innovation.

This historical example of the creation of the arms industry in the Connecticut River Valley in the 1800s provides new insights into the value of government venture capital (GVC) and government demand in creating a new industry. Since current theoretical explanations of the best uses of governmental venture capital are still under development, there is considerable need for further theory development to explain and predict the creation of an industry and especially those industries where failures in private capital supply necessitates governmental involvement in new firm creation. The purpose of this paper is to provide an in depth historical review of how the arms industry evolved spurred by GVC and government created demand.

This study uses abductive inference as the best way to build and test emerging theories and advancing theoretical explanations of the best uses of GVC and governmental demand to achieve socially required outcomes.

By observing this specific historical example in detail, the authors add to the understanding of value creation caused by governmental venture capital funding of existing theory. A major contribution of this paper is to advance theory based on detailed observation.

The relatively limited research literature and theory development on governmental venture capital funding and the critical success factors in startups are enriched by this abductive investigation of the creation of the historically important arms industry and its spillover into creating the specialized machine industry.

In a 1977 publication Alfred Chandler singled out the Springfield Armory as the site where single‐unit management was pioneered in the United States, crediting Superintendent Roswell Lee (1815‐1833) with establishing a first “managerial” approach to work discipline and labour accounting. However, as economic breakthrough came only in 1841/2, it has since been argued that Lee′s role has been overestimated. Re‐examines archival evidence to show that: the changes of 1842 at Springfield were not due to external economic pressures, but to pressure exerted by West Point graduates in the Ordnance Department; Lee, as the dominant arms manufacturer in the 1820s, was not “held back” by economic factors from implementing any changes he desired; and his system of work organization was never even potentially managerial, with his accounting system in particular having been fundamentally misinterpreted. The evidence reinforces the case for viewing the invention of modern business and managerialism as primarily a disciplinary breakthrough.

Reviews the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoints practical implications from cutting‐edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

Like lightning, you never know where innovation success may strike. Or do you? While luck and seemingly random factors often seem the main source of a significant development, other factors can be both identified and manipulated to create a lightning conductor for a business. History has several lessons that can teach firms where and when success may strike – why the industrial revolution took place in the mills of England's county of Lancashire, or why the computer technology boom of the 1970s and 1980s was centered in California's Silicon Valley. Detailed analysis of historical developments in context can lead to fascinating insights into the why and when of business success and maybe the how of it being replicated in the future.

Provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy‐to‐digest format.

Hoskin and Macve have suggested that the crucial discontinuity in accounting’s development over the last two centuries occurred with its use for disciplinary purposes at the Springfield Armory in the USA in the 1830s and 1840s. Questions the applicability of their thesis to Britain through an examination of the manuscript records of the Dowlais Iron Company. Determines that, at Dowlais, in the mid‐nineteenth century, the accounting system was used for administrative co‐ordination and managerial decision‐making purposes, but does not appear to have been used for purposes of labour discipline, even though this was a matter of concern. Suggests that the Dowlais management, through the use of other methods to counter indiscipline, was able to develop and utilize the accounting system in other ways; also suggests that accounting in Britain may have developed somewhat differently from that in the USA. Suggests that future research into the history of accounting needs to examine the possibility of separate development paths resulting from varying socio‐economic contexts in different countries.

In a series of related articles, several authors argue that the establishment of military superintendency at the US Armories in 1841 enabled Daniel Tyler′s “pathbreaking inspection” in 1832 to exert disciplinary power over labour and stimulate subsequent productivity improvements. In essence, the authors identify a critical event, place it in a Foucauldian power/knowledge framework, and accredit it with major impact on accounting development. A careful re‐examination of archival material discloses, however, that in these “new” histories, factual material is selectively presented and questionably interpreted, apparently to bolster a disciplinary‐based historical viewpoint. Re‐examines letters, documents, and secondary source material and compares this evidence to the factual material presented in the new Foucauldian histories. Arrives at a more traditional interpretation of events at the Springfield Armory, one that minimizes the historical impact of Tyler′s work and West Point trained superintendency. The overriding contention is that the search for an understanding of accounting history should not be driven by a post‐modern theory of social relations.

Taylorism and scientific management, as significant components of productive relations in the USA during the early twentieth century, have been examined by accounting historians representing the major paradigms that hold sway in contemporary historiography – the Foucauldian, the Marxist (labour process), and the economic rationalist (Neoclassical). The great bulk of this work has assumed that the major tenets of scientific management, such as time study, incentive wage schemes, standard costing, and variance analysis, were in common usage during the first two decades of the current century. This paper intends to set the record straight by demonstrating that theory was running far ahead of practice in that the number of actual adoptions of the new methods were not concomitant with the prevalence of scientific management literature. Subsequently, the paper will endeavour to show how the three major paradigms combine to enhance our understanding of Taylorism. Much of what Taylor wrote can be interpreted within a Foucauldian framework; the negative reaction of organised labour was much in the Marxist tradition; and, finally, the lack of applications in practice reflected economically rational action on the part of entrepreneurs (thereby completing the triangle).