Geographical Indication (GI) options for Ethiopian Coffee and Ghanaian Cocoa

Innovation & Intellectual Property
of development. According to Lipset, industrialisation leads directly to positive
social change, because it facilitates the emergence of democratic political institutions
(Lipset, 1959). Bert Hoselitz also espoused a sociological approach to
development, focusing on cultural change as a prerequisite for economic growth.
Hoselitz argued that capitalist entrepreneurs, who of necessity set themselves
apart from the mainstream, are the ones who generate new ideas. Hoselitz also
believed that cities, to a greater extent than rural areas, are birthplaces of innovation,
and he thus favoured political power being held by entrepreneurs in urban
areas (Hoselitz, 1960; Peet and Harwick, 2009). Sociologist Talcott Parsons (1966)
considered the most successful societies to be those that are able to adapt and differentiate
for the purpose of using resources effectively and gaining a competitive
advantage over other societies.
Another group of modernisation theorists presented a more psychological
orientation. David McClelland (1961) argued that economic development can
only take place in a society that accords importance to the achievement of innovation
and entrepreneurship. Everett Hagen (1962) argued that society’s values
would shift towards favouring innovation and economic growth once traditional
peoples searching for new identities engaged in processes characterised by creativity
and the need to achieve.
Alongside the development of these diverse perspectives on modernisation,
the 1960s saw a resurgence of interest in the notion of innovation, with one area
of particular interest being the inexplicably rapid rise of Japanese productivity
(Freeman, 1987). Economists became interested in identifying factors instrumental
in pushing countries along the path of modernisation. Walt Whitman Rostow
(1960) argued that all societies pass through five sequential categories of economic
development: (1) traditional society; (2) preconditions for take-off; (3)
take-off; (4) the drive to maturity; and (5) an age of high mass consumption. In
Rostow’s thinking, technological development is the stimulus that moves a society
from one stage to the next. As such, the emergence of new production functions,
which facilitate rapid growth in primary sectors, is a prerequisite for development
even in mature, industrialised economies.
Everett Rogers (1962) also devised a five-step theory, about the diffusion
of innovation, whereby an individual (1) becomes aware of an innovation;
(2) becomes interested in the innovation and seeks information about
it; (3) chooses to either adopt or reject the innovation; (4) (if the innovation
is accepted) puts the innovation to use on a small scale; and (5) adopts the
innovation for continued use in the future. According to Rogers, the successful
spread of an innovation follows an S-shaped curve: after the first 15% of
people in a society adopt an innovation there is relatively rapid adoption by the
remaining members.
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