Innovation, even technological innovation, has a distinctly human face. It is a serious technological oversight to ignore the human side of innovation – the motivation driving those who create new technologies. In particular, it is important to consider the impact of the work environment surrounding these individuals, an environment that emerges from management attitudes toward technological progress and risk-taking. Such attitudes are likely to be significantly affected by major organizational change. In this chapter we consider the effects of the work environment on innovation and, in particular, the effects of organizational downsizing on the work environment for innovation. What happens to entrepreneurial, risk-taking activity among scientists and technicians during periods of turbulence? If there is an impact on such behaviors, it is likely that technological innovation itself will be affected as well.

In chapter 3 in this volume, Garud, Nayyar, and Shapira treat technological oversights and foresights as consequences of choices by firms to invest or withhold investment in a particular technology. The focus is on risk-taking behavior by key managers in the firm. At a more microscopic level, however, the creation and development of new ideas for technological innovations depends on appropriate risk-oriented thinking among the inventors themselves. Garud, Nayyar, and Shapira briefly suggest that such behavior depends, at least in part, on the organizational environment that top management has established in the firm. This is the central thesis that we present here.