Philosophy of Management

Volume 3, Issue 2, 2003

Developing Perspectives

Jeremy Hall, Michael Martin
Pages 13-22

Developing and Assessing New Technology
Popper, Monsanto and GMOs

The UK launch of the Science Enterprise Challenge in 1999 has stimulated interest in the evolutions of science-based firms and this paper argues that Poppers seminal diverse contributions to philosophy are directly relevant to them. It begins by commenting on the applications of both Kuhns and Poppers concepts to technological (as against) scientific evolutions. It then suggests how Poppers approaches are applicable to the development and assessment of new technology within the framework of Freemans stakeholders approach. Monsanto s development of GMOs is used as an illustrative case.