Understanding the history of industrial innovation. Developments and milestones in key action fields of R&D management

The management of R&D and innovation in industrial companies is often said to be on its path to a major transformation within the next decades. Key drivers include technological developments, enabling a higher degree of digitisation or automation and a cultural shift towards democratisation and openness, both leaving behind organisational models of single inventors or centrally organised R&D departments see e.g. [Bul16], [Sch16], 17]. A key question is, if there is a next big thing or a disruption coming up in industrial innovation. Referring to a rather non-academic statement, it might also be that ""it's all just a little bit of history repeating""1. This is the reason why we propose a historical analysis of previous developments and milestones in the key action fields of R&D Management as a basis for an in-depth analysis of potential future developments.