(Week 9)Paper Review Article 4

8/7/2019 (Week 9)Paper Review Article 4

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Journal of Management Studies 39:7 No v e m b e r 2 0 0 20022-2380

THE RESPONSE OF OLD TECHNOLOGY INCUMBENTS TOTECHNOLOGICAL COMPETITION - DOES THE SAILING SHIPEFFECT EXIST?JOHN HOWELLS

Aarhus Schoot of Business

ABSTRACT

This article investigates whether firms react to a radical technological substitutionthreat by a deliberate acceleration of innovation in their existing technology - the'sailing ship effect'. There have been repeated claims that the effect has been sig-nificant as a source of innovation (Foster, 1988; Rosenberg, 1976; Rothwell andZegveld, 1985; Utterback, 1996). Detailed reexamination of two cases thought tobe exemplars of the effect reveals that it existed in neither. It is suggested that thecharacteristics of historical, technological substitution processes prompt misinter-pretation based on superficial knowledge. Brief review of two other cases furthersupports this position. It is argued that if the phenomenon occurs, it is likely tobe rare.

INTRODUCTION

Creative Destruction and Three Firm Reactions to Innovation; Exit, Switch and the SaitingShip EffectCreative destruction was Schumpeter ' s te rm for the process by which innovationdestroys existing firms and their technologies (Sch um peter, 1943, p. 81). It includesthe process of substitution of a new technology for an existing technology for somedefined market . Schumpeter had no th ing to say abou t the possible reaction of theestablished firms to this process, but we know from work in the m a n a g e m e n t a r e athat there sometimes is an active response to the th rea t of creative destruction(Cooper and Schendel , 1988; C o o p e r and Smith, 1992; Foster, 1988). From thisli terature we can identify thre e gen eric strategies of response to the process of sub-stitution, which can be referred to as exit, switch (to the new technology) and thesaiting ship effect (the acceleration of innovation in the old technology in response tothe threat from the new). Before we analyse this last we should say something of theo the r two.

'Exi t ' may of course be a forced outcome of creative destruction, via l iquida-tion. However, it is a strategic response if the incumbent firm anticipates problems


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888 J. HOWELLSfrom future innovation and elects to exit the threatened market early and to itsadvantage over 'forced' exit.The decision to 'switch' from the old to the new technology is particularly inter-esting and has been the focus for the papers cited above, especially Cooper andSmith (1992). This latter pap er examines eight product lines that experienced sub-stitution effects; these range from ball point versus ink pens, to diesel-electric versussteam locomotives. Much of the analysis concerns the behaviour of 27 establishedfirms, selected by Cooper and Smith for their dominant market position in the oldtechnology. All of these entered the new technology, but few managed to establishas dominant a position in the new technology as they had in the old. A diverserange of problems faced those wishing to switch; these included the problems ofinternal groups which recognised that the advancement of the new technologythreatened their expertise and power, and the problems of judging how the newtechnology would develop and which old competencies could be retained andwhich should be shed (Cooper and Smith, 1992).Quality of E vidence for the Sailing Sh ip EffectCooper and Smith provide the most thorough exploration of response strategiespublished in the management literature (they consulted over 250 secondarysources). However, they nowhere comment on the third response strategy, the so-called 'sailing ship effect', which can be defined as an acceleration of innovation ithe old technology in response to the threat of innovation in the new technology.Some earlier management articles on response strategies do refer to the sailingship effect, but they provide litde hard evidence of its occurrence; it seems tobe assumed, while the major focus is once again on the strategy of switch. Forexample, Foster refers to it as a 'typical response' (Foster, 1988, p. 220) anddescribes how sailing ship producers actively sought to improve sail in response tothe threat of steam. However, Foster does not give any sources for his assertionand it is likely that he is drawing on the widespread, but incorrect interpretationof Cilfillan, to be discussed later in this paper. A paper by Cooper and Schendelreviewed seven examples of response to technological substitution threat andclaimed that firms fought back in two ways: by improving the old technology a ndby switching to the new. To 'fight back' by improving the old technology is adescription of the sailing ship effect, but their paper is almost entirely a discussionof the swdtch decision; they provide no evidence for, or against the existence ofthe sailing ship effect (Cooper and Schendel, 1988, p. 249). The absence of anyreference to the effect in the later Cooper and Smith article (Cooper and Smith,1992) is evidence of a kind for the absence, rarity, or at least of the effect'srelative unimportance compared to the switch and exit response outcomes.

Claims for the effect rely on case study evidence. There is of course the case ofsteam versus sail in the nineteenth century which gave the effect its name throughGilfillan's work (Cilfillan, 1935a) and which is referred to by Foster, Rosenberg,and Rothwell and Zegveld.There is also a very strong claim for the existence of the effect in the nineteenth


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RESPONSE TO TECHNO LOGICAL COMPETITION 88 9nological trajectories. Rather than attempting to capitalise on the possibilitiesoffered by the emergence of a superior new substitute technology, they vigor-ously defend their position through the accelerated improvement of the oldtechnology. (Rothwell and Zegveld, 1985, p. 41)

Rothwell and Zegveld not only assert the existence of the effect, but also that thestrategy of accelerating old technology innovation was adopted rather than thesuperior strategy of 'switch' to a demonstrably superior technology. If the superi-ority of the new technology really was known to the old technology firms, we havean extraordinary case of economically 'irrational' behaviour. This case promisesto develop our understanding of when and why firms adopt the 'sailing ship'strategy.A recent book by Utterback devotes a whole chapter to the invasion of stablebusinesses by radical innovation and concludes that the sailing ship effect is ageneral strategic response to threatening innovation (Utterback, 1996, chapter 7).Of course the established players do not always sit back and watch their m arketsdisappear. Most fight back. The gas companies came back against the Edisonlamp . . . with the Welsbach mantle . , . there was n othing incremental abou tthat. Purveyors of established technologies often respond to an invasion of theirproduct market with redoubled creative effort that may lead to substantialproduct improvement based on the same product architecture. (Utterback1996, p. 159)

Utterback's view depends on two more nineteenth century cases: gas versus elec-tric lighting, and mechanical versus harvested ice. The gas industry is a particu-larly promising candidate because the Welsbach gas mantle was certainly a radicalinnovation; it improved gas lighting efficiency by five times and for a time it wasnot clear that electric lighting would prove the more effective and efficient light-ing source (Bright, 1949, p. 126).However, it does appear odd that the effect can occur in the sail, alkali, light-ing and ice cases, but that exam ples of it were not repo rted in Cooper and Smith'sreview article. Although the Cooper and Smith cases are more recent, they are

not obviously and systematically different from the other cases. If any historicaltrend is to be expected, it is surely that firms would have greater ability to respondto invading innovation, and that response might be expected to include the sailingship effect.Why the Sailing Ship Effect is SignificantSo far a number of authors have claimed that the effect is widespread, but theeconomic historian Rosenberg has best articulated an appreciation of the eco-nomic significance of the effect if this is so.

The imminent threat to a firm's profit margins which are presented by the rise


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890 J. HOWELLSprocess, even though they find no place at present in formal economic theory.(Rosenberg, 1976, p. 205)

Although Rosenberg is discussing opera tional efficiency rather than induced tech-nological change, clearly if the sailing ship effect is widespread, it threatens to forceus to rethink the very nature of 'competition' in the economy. One of the strangequestions that would be raised if this were so, is why firms that accelerate tech-nological change as a response to substitution com petition did no t do so before thatcompetition arose - why did not the normal competitive process between the oldtechnology firms ensure the adoption of any possible innovations in that technol-ogy? We are forced to radical alternatives such as that they may have deliberatelyand collectively suppressed potential innovation until the advent of a major threat.Or that when they realized the extremity of the threat to their existence they weresomehow so strongly motivated that they were able to organize differendy, orsearch or work differently, such that they were able to develop genuine radicalinnovation as a response to threat. If the effect is widespread, then perhaps eitherthe suppression of innovation is widespread, or perhaps firms are just not suffi-ciently strongly motivated by norm al com petition to innovate until threatened w ithextinction? Such possibilities do not fit well with available theory, but their dis-cussion can be postponed until the widespread nature of the sailing ship effect isestablished beyond doubt.

However, Rosenberg, like others, also seems somewhat dependent on the sailversus steam case. He writes that the builders of sailing ships 'responded to thecompetition of iron an d steam' (Rosenberg, 1976, p. 205). The n in a later passagehe becomes more careful about the source of continued sailing ship innovation.

The sailing ship of the 1880s was far superior to its predecessor of 1850 or so,and it seems plausible to attribute this improvement to the strong competitionof steam. Obviously one cannot assert this with authority, because we do notknow what the sailing ship of the 1880s would have been like in the absence ofsuch inter-technological competition. But it seems like a reasonable conjecture.(Rosenberg, 1976, p. 206)If the effect exists and is widespread, then it seems that it is significant for ourunderstanding of both the general firm strategic response to the threat of substi-tuting radical innovation and the process of competition in the wider economy.We have several strong claims for its existence in four specified cases, with the sailversus steam case most often cited. We have Rosenberg's observation that opera-tional efficiencies as a result of substitution threats are widespread, yet he seemsto prevaricate over the sailing ship effect's existence in the exemplifying case ofsail. In the management literature there are no additional developed cases of theeffect, and a peculiar absence of mention of the effect in Cooper and Smith's thor-ough review of eight substitution cases, which is exacdy where you would expectto find further evidence. We may conclude at this point that the sailing ship effectis surely worthy of further investigation.


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RESPONSE TO TECHNOLOGICAL COMPETITION 8 9 1and if more plausible and conventional explanations for the appearance of the effectcan be found, we will not have to revise our fundam ental concepts of competitionand strategy. What now follows is a detailed analysis of the competitive process infirst the sail and then the alkali case.The sail case has been chosen because it is so frequently cited that it has givenits name to the effect and it is also an example of a 'typical' nineteenth centurypattern of incremental and long term technological substitution: the ice, sail andgas cases all have invading technologies which evolved throug h many incrementalinnovation steps, and the rate of substitution was limited by this slow rate ofimprovement of the new technology. The alkali case has been chosen because itdemonstrates a quite different pattern of substitution. The novel Solvay chemicalprocess technology was from its inception recognized as a radical and superiorprocess to the old Leblanc method of making sodium carbonate. Only the rate ofbuild of new plant obviously limited the rate of substitution - in this case aboveall others, the Leblanc producers must have been aware of the threat of extinc-tion and should have had time to respond.

It will become evident that neither the sail nor alkali cases demonstrate con-vincing evidence of the sailing ship effect as an acceleration of innovation in the oldtechnology in response to the threat of the new. Therefore, in these two cases therewill also be a concern to establish how the substitution process could have beeninterpreted by the authors concerned as evidence of the sailing ship effect. Thiswill be followed by an application of the lessons from the sail and alkali cases tothe ice and gas cases. Finally, there is some discussion of what this implies for ourunderstanding of the concept of technological competition.

THE SAILING SHIP EFFECT IN THE SAILING SHIP INDUSTRYAlthough both Rothwell and Zegveld, and Rosenberg cite GilfiUan's study of inno-vation in sailing ships as the key example of the sailing ship effect, Gilfillan's workdoes not provide an unequivocal demonstration of the effect. Gilfillan's work con-sists of a survey of innovation in ships from earliest history (Gilfillan, 1935a) fromwhich he tries to draw general principles governing innovation in his 'Sociologyof Invention' (Gilfillan, 1935b). The 'sailing ship effect' is no t one of Gilfillan's keyprinciples, but relevant passages appear when he describes tbe prospects for sailin the 1930s.

Only today, faced by the imminent extinction of all wind-blown vessels, do wesee signs of an impending revolutionary period - such signs as the auxiliaryengine sailer, the sailing barge, and especially since the War, the metal sail withtwo stream-lined surfaces, and the ro torship. (Gilfillan, 1935b, p. 18)

Today the very threat of extinction seems to have stimulated greater inventive-ness than ever . . . (Gilfillan, 1935b, p. 163)


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892 J. HOWELLSThe decline of the sailing ship . . . had produced a feeling of crisis, of necessityfor action, among not only those directly concerned, but also by the steamshippeople who valued the w indjamm ers as a training sc ho ol. . . (Gilfillan, 1935b,p. 212)

Sailing ship producers are included among those who feel the industry has cometo a terminal crisis, but neither here nor elsewhere are specific innovations causallyassociated with their sense of crisis. Which is not to say that they did not occur,but Gilfillan provides scattered evidence of state intervention and support ratherthan private sector investment driven by a sense of crisis.So Gilfillan associates the sense of crisis within sail with the founding of theInstitute voor Aero-en-Hydro-Dynamik in Amsterdam, a research institute withthe object of studying the physical flow laws and their industrial application. Theestablished German inventor-entrepreneur Anton Flettner cooperated in creatingand then managing the institute; Gilfillan quotes Flettner,The wind propulsion of ships attracted our interest more than anything else.Th ere was no do ubt in our minds that the visibly progressing decay of the sailingship, which could not appreciably be delayed by the advent of the auxiliary(motored) sailing ship, was not a fact which one had to accept like a law ofna ture. (Flettner, 1926; cited in Gilfillan, 1935b, p. 212)

This is a clear expression of the belief that accelerated innovation in sail waspossible. However, it tells us nothing about the sailing ship effect, since we donot know the contribution of private sector, old technology firms to the research.It cannot have been very much, since in 1926, only a few years after the founda-tion of the institute in 1922 (Gilfillan, 1935b, p. 212) 'building had practicallyceased' (GUfillan, 1935b, p. 163).Gilfillan and Flettners' enthusiasm for the renewed future of sail dependedlargely on the prospects for Flettner's 'rotor' ship. What is important to our dis-cussion is that the second and most importan t prototype of the rotor ship was paidfor, not by a sailing ship firm, but by the German Navy. By 1935, even the opti-mistic Gilfillan comments that the rotor ship appeared to have run into economicdifficulties. More than 60 years later, we know that neither the failed rotor shipnor any of the other projected radical innovations saved the sailing ship in its coremarkets of freight transportation.Not only does Gilfillan not make an explicit claim for the 'sailing ship effect' asa private sector phenomenon, he provides persuasive evidence that governmentwas the more important funding agency for these attempts at radical invention.Does this mean the sailing ship effect is an imaginative fiction? To complete theanalysis we must look at the pattern of real incremental innovations that changedthe sailing ship during the period of its displacement by steam. It will become clearthat it is far from clear that such innovation was 'driven' by competition fromsteam.


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RESPONSE TO TECHNOLOGICAL COMPETITION 893In the case of sailing ships, first, wooden hulls were built around a steel frame,later, hulls and sail masts could be made entirely of steel (Gilfillan, 1935b, p. 160).Stronger ships and steel masts allowed greater areas of sail and greater wind powerto be captured. This source of economic advantage explains the continuallydecreasing costs of sail freight contracts recorded at the Baltic exchange (Harley,1971) and somewhat obscures the real substitution process of steam as a motiveforce for sail.

It is clear enough tbat there is no need to postulate an increased sense of threatto explain continuing innovation of this sort; the usual competitive process is suf-ficient, where firms with similar technologies seek to better meet the needs of usersthrough tbe improvement of their products and services - in this case through theexploitation of cheapening new materials.In the search for understanding of the competition between the two motive tech-nologies and in the absence of direct evidence of management intentions linkedto specific sail innovations, the best we can do is to reconstruct the steps in thepattern of substitution.The most obvious feature of this process was that substitution was hamperedby the slow evolution of steam as a power source. Early steam ships were disad-vantaged because England was the primary coal source during the nineteenthcentury and they had to carry their own fuel. As a consequence, steam cargo ratesrose dramatically with distance from England - the greater the journey fromEngland, the more cargo space had to be allocated to coal storage. This effect wasweakened as first coaling stations were established on major trade routes and theneventually new sources of coal developed outside England and Europe.Therefore tbe pattern of substitution was for first short, then increasingly long dis-tance voyages from England to be taken by steam ships. This pattern was driventhroughout the period of coexistence of the two motive technologies by constantimprovements to the efficiency of marine engines and boilers (boiler operatingpressure was crucial and depended on techniques of metal manufacture).What we have called the 'period of substitution' lasted for over 70 years and inthis time the volume of shipping grew enormously, so that although sailing shipsdeclined as a proportion of ships built (in the late 1860s two thirds of tonnagebuilt was sail; by 1872 it was only 15 per cent; Harley, 1971, p. 224), the largest

tonnage of sailing ships launched in a single year in Britain was launched in 1892(Harley, 1971). Relative decline was masked by absolute growth in demand formany decades and this effect, common to many substitution cases, might beexpected to mask the 'threat' from steam.The market for shipping services also became increasingly segmented over thisperiod. The principal service advantage of steam over sail lay in its speed and reli-ability, which is why passenger services were taken by steam as early as the 1850sand 1860s (Harley, 1971). For the same reason, cargoes consisting of perishableand high value goods like tea switched to steamers first. However, sail remainedeconomic compared to steam into the twentieth century for the longest voyagesto the pacific coast of the USA and to Australia, aided by the 'economics' of tradewinds, shipping bulk cargoes, like coal, tonne value (Harley,


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894 J. HOWELLScould replace almost all reefing. Sails and mast heights were standardised, andmore use made of the easily han dled fore-and-aft sails, so tha t the grea t steelfour-mast bark, like the noble Brilliant, became almost standard around 1900,the last established type. (GUfillan, 1935b, p. 160)

Other adaptations were made, such as auxiliary steam engines to further reducelabour costs and to increase manoeuvrability, for example in harbour.As far as the sailing ship effect is concerned, our problem is that these opera-tional adaptations were not necessarily made 'in competition' with steam, i.e. as aconscious strategic response to declining costs of steam transport. T hey might justas well have been adaptations to the physical characteristics of long distancevoyages, driven by competition between rival sailing ship firms for contracts. Onthe very long voyages which comprised the remaining 'market' for sailing ships,the listed innovations aided the efficient exploitation of trade winds, which pro-vided reliable motive force; in deep seas and with unchanging, constant winds,small crews became possible.The Lack of Evidence for the EffectThroughout this detailed account of the substitution process, we have this problemthat continuing old technology innovation is not evidence of the sailing ship effect,for it may just as well have been driven by 'n ormal' competition between old tech-nology incumbents. The evidence of clear radical invention like the rotor ship(which failed) was financed and driven by government, not the firms supposedlyexperiencing a great threat. There is no 'innovation frequency chart' to demon-strate an increase in the rate of innovation in response to steam; all we have isHarley's chart of a monotonic decline in sailing ship freight costs, which if it isanything is evidence against the sailing ship effect.

Decisive evidence m ight exist in prim ary company sources and would consist ofmanag em ent statements that innovative projects were successfully carried throughas a response to steam. The only examples we have of such statements are asso-ciated with, once again, the Flettner rotor ship effort, a government-inspiredproject, but it remains possible that a thorough search of specialized libraryarchives in, perhaps, Hamburg, might produce this kind of evidence.Given this situation it is still possible to discuss the characteristics of thesubstitution process as they would be likely to impact on the sailing ship effect'decision'.

It is Unlikely that a Strong Threat was P erceived Throu ghout the Period of SubstitutionThe plausibility of the sailing ship effect hinges first on the perception on the partof sailing ship producers that there was a strong threat to their existence. In o rderto think about this, it may be useful to think of the two technologies as dominantin two separate markets, but alternatives to each other only at some geographical'boun dary ' between these markets. Over a period of more than half a century thisboundary moved to eliminate the sailing ship - but at any point in time the bulk


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RESPONSE TO TECHNO LOGICAL COMPETITION 89 5only evidence we have that producers experienced a strong sense of threat is atthe very end of the substitution period (Gilfillan, 1935b) and by this time it wasapparently too late for producers to act.It is Likely that the Strategic Alternatives of 'Switch' and 'Exit' Wo uld Be Com pared to the(Possible) Option of the Sailing Ship EffectOne last issue pertinent to the sailing ship effect may be raised in this case; thestrength of the sailing ship builders' commitment to the old technology, or thedegree of technological 'lock-in'. We would like to know how difficult it was toswitch between the manufacture of sailing ships and steam ships. If it were easyto switch from the old to the new technology, it would be a matter of relative indif-ference to producers if the old technology were eliminated - they would simplymove to the new technology.

We do have some piecemeal evidence that the sailing ship producers were notstrongly locked-in to the old technology; in the mid-nineteenth century the sameproducers also equipped early (and unreliable) steamships with sail (for example,Brunei's Great Western and Eastern steamships; Rolt, 1957). We also recall thatby the early twen tieth century, sailing ship hulls were made from steel as steamshipswere - sailing ship producers were acquiring some of the technological abilitiesthat steamship builders would need. All this may be taken to suggest that thedegree of lock-in to the old technology was certainly not insurmountable, and wemay therefore doubt that when it was finally recognized that sailing ships were onthe point of elimination there would have been a strong desire to react in theirdefence (whether or not possible).In general, we might expect that the effort of the sailing ship effect, even if pos-sible, would - or should - be compared to the alternative strategies of 'switch' tothe new technology - and of course, the 'strategy' of exit to an entirely differentactivity. In conjunction with the observation that 'normal' competition within theold technology should result in adoption of old technology innovations, whichimplies that the potential for increasing the rate of innovation in the old technol-ogy is low to non-existent, we can suspect that the sailing ship effect, if it exists atall, is not widespread.We have a strong case for the absence of the sailing ship effect in the case that

above all others was thought to exemplify the effect. We turn now to the othercase that has been interpreted as providing strong evidence of the effect, the caseof rival alkali production technologies in late nineteenth century England. Herewe have a case where a strong sense of threat was experienced by the old tech-nology firms and yet the strategy of 'switch' was blocked by the patent position ofthe firm controlling the new technology.

TECH NOL OGIC AL COM PETITION BETW EEN TH E SOLVAY AND LEBLANCPROCESSES FOR ALKALI PRODUCTION IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

As in the sail case, the rival processes for producing alkali (sodium carbonate) co-


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896 J. HOWELLSto build new Solvay plant - or unless there was a sailing ship effect. Since B runnerMond obtained a licence for the Solvay process and began production in Britainin 1872, but the last Leblanc plant was only closed in the first world war (Lindertand Trace, 1971), there was an apparent protracted 42 year period of coexistenceof the two technologies. Th is begs for an explanation a nd with no further infor-mation there is a tendency among some of the secondary sources to assume a suc-cessful (in the sense of some economic gain) sailing ship strategy on the part ofthe Leblanc producers; for example, Yu, below.

Despite the obvious advantages of the Solvay process, British managers, who had a largeinvestmen t in Leblanc plant, were unw illing to aband on it [ Y u ' s e m p h a s i s ] . I n s t e a d , t h e yresponded to the challenge in a number of ways: by increasing efficiencythrough process improvement; by concentration through the merging of com-panies to form the United Alkali Company, thus facilitating economies of scale;and through entering into price fixing agreements with British Solvay produc-ers (Yu, 1982; cited in Rothwell and Zegveld, 1985, p. 41).

The unexplanned mystery is why Leblanc producers were prepared to do all thiswhen the better available strategy was to switch to Solvay production. Like Yu,Rothwell and Zegveld also stress tfie apparent irrationality of tfie Leblanc pro-ducers, as does a tfiird source, Lindert and Trace (although they have notfiing tosay about tfie sailing sfiip effect; Lindert and Trace, 1971). The long period ofcoexistence of tfie two processes wfien one is obviously superior to tfie otfier is aproblem requiring explanation and superficially it does appear to support the con-clusion of irrationality on tfie part of tfie Leblanc producers.However, it will be sfiown that an alternative and better explanation is availablefor tfie adfierence to tfie old tecfinology that involves no irrationality and no sailingsfiip effect, but only poor jud gement. As witfi sail and steam, a more detailed analy-sis of tfie case is required.From Creative Destruction in a Free Market to a Rigged MarketBrunner Mond fiad a preferential license in Britain for tfie Solvay process, tfiesuperior and soon dominant ammonia-soda metfiod of sodium carbonate manu-facture. Tfie conditions of tfie patent were sucfi as to make Brunner Mond tfieeffective monopoly supplier of Solvay ammonia-soda in Britain. Production beganin fialting fasfiion in 1874 (Reader, 1970, p. 53).Once Brunner Mond production became significant, Leblanc soda productionbegan a rapid decrease, despite tfie rapidly growing market for soda asfi tfirougfi-out tfie second fialf of tfie nineteenth century. Figures compiled (Table I) from astandard cfiemical industry fiistory (Haber, 1958) sfiow creative destruction wellunderway in tfie 1880s, and crude extrapolation of trends in Table I suggest tfiatit would have been possible for creative destruction to fiave been completed before1900.Instead tfiere is a dramatic cessation of expansion of Solvay production byBrunner Mond around 1890 and static output for eigfit years. Brunner Mond fiad


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RESPONSE TO TECHNOLOGICAL COMPETITION 89 7Table I. Solvay versus Leblanc production of sodium carbonate inBritain in thousands of tonsSotvay (ktons) Lebtanc (ktons)(Haber, 1958, p. 158) (Haber, 1958, p. 152)1878 4 1878 196.91880 18.8 1880 266.1

1882 233.21884 204.1

1885 77.51886 165.9

1890 179.51898 1811900 2251903 240

Data derived from Haber (1958, pp. 152, 158). Additional data: 1878Solvay figure from Rea der (1970, p. 53) and 1900 figure from R eade r (1970,p. 174). NB: The UAC refused to publish preeise Leblanc soda outputfigures from 1893 (Lindert and Trace, 1971, p. 282), while U K governmentstatistics do not distinguish between the output of Solvay and Leblancprocesses. O utpu t figures later than this date are difficult to establish, esp e-cially as the alkali industry continued to differentiate into caustic, bleach-ing powder and chlorine products as well as sodium carbonate. This tablerepresents a compilation of all output data which specifies the producing technol-ogy that I have been able to find in the sources listed.

ence of the rival technologies. However, it is now not clear why Brunner Mond,with the proven superior technology, should want to enter an agreement with the'loser' firms . To understand this firm behaviour, we need to know more detail ofthe Leblanc and Solvay processess and the events behind their substitution.Solvay as a Partial Technological Substitute for Leblanc OutputThe key to understanding this case is that it is not a simple one of substitutionof one process for sodium carbonate production by another, as has been assumedby some of the secondary sources (in particular, Rothwell and Zegveld). Bothprocesses produced byproducts and wastes whose economic value changedthrough this period; as in the case of sail, we have to be careful about what 'com-petes' with what. It will be argued that in the detail of such changes lies the expla-nation of the Leblanc producers' apparently 'irrational' adherence to the Leblancprocess.Th e Leblanc process had more wastes and byproducts than the Solvay process.It began with the treatment of salt with sulphuric acid, which produced hydro-chloric acid. This was originally discarded, but by the second half of the nine-teenth century it could be used as a key input for the manufacture of bleachingpowder, for which there was a new and growing market. Later, chlorine could beextracted for another distinct market via the Deacon process.


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898 J. HOWELLSmade via tfie L eblanc process tfian tfie Solvay (Lindert and Trace, 1971 , p. 251).As demand for caustic grew, tfie Leblanc producer deliberately switcfied produc-tion from soda, so reducing losses and boosting profits at tfie same time (Haber,1958, p. 96).However, wfienever bleacfiing powder was made, either sodium carbonate orcaustic soda would fiave to be m ade. Tfiis m eant tfiat despite tfie growtfi of tfiesenew markets, tfie Leblanc producers would retain a limited interest in tfie state oftfie sodium carbonate market.The Log ic of the Market AgreementPrices for soda asfi in Europe fell over 75 per cent between tfie 1860s and late1880s (Reader, 1970, p. 54), a scale of decline greater tfian any estimated cost dif-ference between tfie two soda production processes. Witfi a general trade depres-sion between 1884 and 1889, tfie decline accelerated, and wfiile tfiis aggravatedlosses for tfie many Leblanc producers, it also brougfit near zero profit for BrunnerMond by 1887 (Lindert and Trace, 1971, p. 257). It is tfiis collapse of profitabil-ity or all producers tfiat induced tfie restructuring of tfie alkali industry and tfie col-lective rigging of output and prices of tfie main alkali products.

Tfie more tfian 40 independent Leblanc producers reacted to tfie slump inprices by merging in 1891 into tfie United Alkali Company (UAC) (Reader, 1970,p. 106). Haber writes of tfie promoters of tfie UAC, that tfiey 'made it clear tfieyintended to effect far-reacfiing reforms' and tfiat tfiey were motivated to 'establisfifriendly relations witfi tfie Solvay manufacturers' (Haber, 1958, p. 182).Tfiese 'friendly relations' comprised an 'agreement on price levels and marketsfiares for each soda product' (Lindert and Trace, 1971, p. 253) and by its peri-odic renegotiation and renewal tfie two parties maintained tfie rigged market intotfie first world war.Irrespective of tfie details of tfie agreement or its effective prosecution, on cir-culation of rumours of tfie formation of tfie UAC, alkali prices began a specula-tive rise, wfiicfi restored and maintained overall profitability for botfi processes untilat least 1897 (Lindert and Trace, 1971). However, tfie details of tfie agreement doreveal tfie strategic concerns of tfie two producers and in particular provide someexplanation for tfie otfierwise astonisfiing entry of Brunner Mond into tfie marketagreement wfien it possessed tfie superior production tecfinology.Brunner Mond's great vulnerability was tfie expiry of its major Solvay patentin 1886 (Reader, 1970, p. 106). and witfi tfie creation of tfie giant UAC (1891)a full or partial switcfi from Leblanc into ammonia soda production was at leasta tfieoretical possibility. In tfie 1891 agreement Brunner Mond obtained an agreedupper limit for UAC ammonia-soda production of 15,000 tons/year. In return,Brun ner M ond agreed an upper limit to its soda production of 165,000 tons/y ear,to limit production of cfilorine and not to enter tfie market for caustic (Reader,1970, p. 109). UAC subsequently made a limited entry into ammonia-soda tecfi-nology witfi tfie purcfiase of two ammonia-soda plant in 1893 (Reader, 1970,p. 108). Tfie agreement therefore effectively ended creative destruction in tfiecarbonate market, but by limiting UAC entry into ammonia-soda production


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RESPONSE TO TECHNO LOGICAL COMPETITION 89 9Brunner Mond could not expect to achieve the full creative destruction of tfieLeblanc producers tfirough output expansion. Such a policy risked the worst ofall worlds: a low sodium carbonate price and the danger of retaliatory entry intoSolvay technology financed by tfie premium prices obtainable in UAC's mono-poly over tfie bleacfiing powder and caustic soda markets.

Nor was an aggressive switcfi to ammonia-soda an obvious and profitable strat-egy for tfie UAC. By 1891 Brunner Mond field over 50 per cent of Britisfi car-bonate production (Table I). Major entry into ammonia-soda risked a furtfier pricecollapse and w ar witfi Bru nner M ond . But if it came to a price war, Brunner M ondfiad capital reserves wfiile UAC was loaded with debt (Haber, 1958, p. 159). Onelast deterrent faced a UAC strategy of massive entry into ammonia-soda - thetechnical difficulty of operating ammonia-soda plant without Solvay group assis-tance. Th e Solvay group collected details on individual plant performance at fort-nightly intervals and in return, dispersed technical assistance and new patentswithin the group. Reader comments on the development of the Solvay processthat,

. . . it will be evident tha t the Solvays' success, when at length it came, dependedcomparatively litde on the kind of knowledge which is revealed in a patentspecification or expounded in a textbook. It depended far more on detailedexperience of tfie process in action and on trade secrets. Tfiese secrets wereand are very carefully guarded indeed . . . (Reader, 1970, p. 45)One of the radical features of the Solvay process was that it operated continu-ously and much of tfie difficulty of management was connected to tfiis feature.Civen tfie years it fiad taken tfie Solvay brotfiers to build up tfiis knowledgeand given Brunner Mond' s powerful lead in operating tfie tecfinology, UAC'sstrategy of negotiating a rigged market, maintaining a division of control of tfietecfinologies and placing tfieir fiopes on tfie future of tfie cfilorine and causticmarkets looks reasonable. In essence, by tfie time UAC was created a nd could poseas a tfireat to Bru nner Mond, it was too late for a strategy of wfiolesale switcfi intoammonia-soda.The R eaction of the Leblanc Producers to Solvay Production - Dubious Evidence of theSailing Ship EffectTfie significance of tfiese events for the Leblanc system is that it bought time andincreased profits with which the Leblanc producers might have sought to improvetheir position. They had a strong motivation to act, combined with what appearedto be time and resource - what did they in fact do?There were improvements to the Leblanc system, but the greatest technologicalinnovation of the period of substitution came before the formation of tfie UAC andwas tfie C laus-C fiance process of 1882, wfiicfi mad e it possible to recover tfiesulpfiur previously lost in tfie form of calcium sulpfiide (Haber, 1958, p. 100). Tfiiscould be recycled to tfie production of sulpfiuric acid, wfiicfi itself fiad a growing


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RESPONSE TO TECHN OLOGICA L COMPETITION 90 1Electrolytic Prod uction of Alkali - Extinction of Leb lancUnfortunately for the UAC this situation did not last long because new sources oftechnological competition e roded its monopoly position in chlorine and caustic sodaproduct markets. Although Brunner M ond developed a means of competing in thechlorine and caustic markets and used these to renegotiate the alkali market sharingagreements in its favour (Haber, 1958, p. 158), the decisive blow was the develop-ment of mode rn electrolytic produ ction methods. Electrolysis of strong brine solu-tion enabled the direct produ ction of caustic soda an d ch lorine well below Leblanccosts. Electrolytic production escalated from 1895 and rapidly eroded the rem ain-ing profitable Leblanc markets (Haber, 1958, p. 160). The formation of the UACand the Brunner Mond market sharing agreement proved to provide a very shortreprieve for the Leblanc system - so short that it casts further doubt on the UAC'sability to deliver any real improvements to the Leblanc system. Once electrolyticproduction began to affect market prices, it rapidly became too late for the Leblancproducers to act. As Haber describes the period of precipitous decline.

The board soon discovered that the discouraging trading results prevented themfrom carrying out their plans for a thoroughgoing modernisation . . . there wasneither the time nor the money to modernise the basic processes or indeed toadapt the company to the new circumstances. The founders' faith in the con-tinuing vitality of the Leblanc process was not borne out by events. The mergermerely slowed down the decay of the industry This in turn hampered all plansfor improvements because this obsolescent process would not even yield its userssufficient profits to enable them to scrap it altogether and make a fresh start.(Haber, 1958, pp. 184-5)

As with the ammonia-soda process, one may ask why the UAC did not switch tothe new technology The UAC research laboratory did identify the Castner patentsas the best on offer (there were many competing electrolytic processes on offer inthe 1890s) but abandoned negotiations with Castner after 7-8 months. In retro-spect this decision can be seen to have been fatal. Backed by finance from Solvay,the Castner-KeUner patents became the basis of a geographic division of marketsfor electrolytic producers. In Britain the 'Castner-Kellner' company obtained themonopoly production rights and the UAC was then locked out of the best elec-trolytic production method for alkali (although by its own account it did try todevelop a proprietary electrolytic method; UAC, 1907).The decision not to buy the Castner patent is better evidence of the medio-crity of the UAC's management than that provided by the ammonia-soda case.Th e I CI historian R eader is dam ning in his judge ment of H urter, the UAC's headof research, even suggesting that he had not wanted electrolysis to work when hepresented the results of his research to the UAC board. In Reader's account,Hurter distrusted Castner' s claims and disliked the price being asked for thepatents (Reader, 1970, p. 118). As Reader comments, the irony was that the UAChad one of the few central research laboratories in Victorian England and theywere ad opting best practice by acting on its advice in this matter. Perhaps because


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902 J. HOWELLS'there was no certainty that Hurte r h ad rejected the final win ner' in 1894 (Reader,1970, p. 119). Even here we cannot be entirely sure how obvious it couldhave been in 1894 that electrolysis was the fiiture for all chlorine and causticproduction and that the Castner patent was clearly the best electrolytic methodat the price Castner offered, or that the UAC's own efforts to develop electrolyswould fail.

It is true that UAC's decision turned out to be a dreadful mistake. Once it wasmade, the company became locked into the Leblanc system of production (itwould be more accurate to say, locked out of the substituting technologies) andbecame a hapless victim of renewed creative destruction. When Reader describesUAC as 'stubborn ly a ttache d' to Leblanc, it is unfair - by the time it was obviousthat Leblanc was doomed, the strategic mistakes had been made and it was toolate for UAC to act.ConclusionIn an industry like the chemical industry where patents proN^ide effective controlof a technology, the 'switch' strategy can be effectively denied to those withoutthe patents. If 'in theory' that leaves the sailing ship effect as a 'strategy', we havefound no decisive evidence of it - rather, the major technological change to theLeblanc system (Chance-Claus process) occurred before the apparently impressivecreation of the UAC and its research laboratory. Despite a vague claim that thislaboratory was able to improve the Leblanc system, no specific innovation couldbe cited. Nor is there evidence that the advent c F electrolysis 'induced' anythingbut a rapid closure of Leblanc activity, as resoui ces quickly ebbed away.

A secondary conclusion is that neither the UAC nor the Brunner Mond strat-egy was evidendy 'irrational' at any point, as some of the secondary sources con-clude (Lindert and Trace , 1971; Rothwell and Zegveld, 1985). The creation ofUAC and the agreement reached with Brunner Mond appears quite an achieve-ment, while the decision of whether to buy the Castner patent was intrinsicallydifficult given the need to correctly anticipate the future evolution of the newtechnology.Perhaps what strikes a modern reader is the absence of state action to maintainthe 'market process'. This state inactivity is a far better cand idate for 'blam e' for the

prolonged survival of UAC and the Leblanc process than irrational entrepre-neurial behaviour. However, even state inactivity proved no t to ma tter greatly, sincethe market agreement appears to have had at best only a delaying effect on theelimination of Leblanc carbonate production, and then the whole Leblanc processwas rapidly overwhelmed by the arrival of electrolysis.

CONCLUSIONSThe Sailing Ship Effect as a Construction of HindsightNone of the cases we have analysed provided definitive evidence in support of asuccessful sailing ship effect. In our cases, the sailing ship effect is a product of


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RESPONSE TO TECHNO LOGICAL COMPETITION 9 0 3T h e f irst i s th e coexistence of appa rently substituting technologies through long periods oftime, which seems to suggest induced improvement in the old technology must havetaken place. What is easily missed in hindsight is that neither of the rival technolo-gies is static in the period of coexistence and that the pattern of substitution for seg-mented markets can explain 'coexistence'. If the new technology evolved in steps andsubstituted for segmented markets over time, then 'coexistence' is not a problemrequiring explanation (there was never 'coexistence' of dissimilar technologies in anidentical market). If the substituting technologies are for a hom ogenous prod uct andmarket, as in the alkali case, then coexistence does require explanation, but in thisbizarre case that explanation did not involve the sailing ship effect, but a 'two-step'process of creative destruction.The second problem with case interpretation is the conjiision of continuous innova-

tion in the old technology with innovation ind uced by the threat of substitution. A c la im forthe sailing ship effect must distinguish between continuous innovation driven bynormal intra-industry competition, and innovation that results from the threat ofthe substituting technology. In other words, the specific motivation for old tech-nology innovation must be established in order to demonstrate the sailing shipeffect. None of the sources cited for either of the cases discussed here provide evi-dence of this kind, which must raise serious doubts about the effect's existence. Ofcourse, it is likely to be most difficult to establish such motivation in old, nineteenthcentury cases and it is strange that most of the cases commonly cited are indeednineteenth century ones - but that is a problem for those who would claim theeffect exists.

Once authors have mistakenly accepted the existence of the effect it becomeseasy to imagine it in other cases. Rothwell and Zegveld, for example, having con-vinced themselves of the existence of the effect in the alkali case, proceeded tofind it in the case of the substitution of semiconductor transistors for the electronicvalve. A careful reading of Braun and McDonald's seminal analysis of the semi-conductor transistor case shows no evidence whatsoever of the sailing ship effect;rather it demonstrates the difficulty of that other, genuine strategic response, of aswitch to the new technology (Braun and McDonald, 1982).

In the introduction there were references to two other cases purported todem onstrate the effect: the ice and lighting cases. A brief discussion of these casesfollows in terms of the problems of case interpretation identified here.A Brief Com ment on Gas Versus Electric Lighting and Mechanical Versus HarvestedIce ProductionThe process of substitution in the ice case is directly comparab le to the sailing shipcase. In the nineteenth century, natural ice was cut from northern US lakes forshipment south and the greater the distance from the frozen lakes, the greater thecost of transport and the more ice that melted in transit, hence the higher theprice of ice in southern US states. Yet the demand for ice for uses such as storageof foods was greatest in precisely the hot regions farthest from the sources of theice. This 'market structure' created the opportunity for the first primitive and in-efficient mechanical pump ice machines to establish themselves in the south. As


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904 J. HOWELLSogy innovation in such circumstances; the natural ice harvesters still had tocompete with each other, within their more northerly markets, and as so often inthese cases, produc tion of ice from old and new technology grew together for manydecades.Utterback cites as examples of old technology innovation during the period ofsubstitution: the standardization of ice block sizes to facilitate storage and trans-port, and gasoline-powered circular saws. The first was introduced in the earlynineteenth century and helped consolidate a particular company's control overthe natural ice trade (Cummings, 1949), but was clearly an innovation related tothe more effective exploitation of natural ice rather than any (then non-existent)technological threat. The second was introduced in the early 1900s, andCummings (one of the historical sources used by Utterback) does state that thesewere introduced as a response to mechanically-produced ice (Cummings, 1949,p. 97). However, Cummings makes this claim in one line of his text; no dates ofadoption are given, no diffusion figures, no justification for the claim that tech-nological threat was the motivation is given. It is significant that he writes that thecircular saw was 'made practicable' by gasoline power a steam-powered circu-lar saw had proven uneconomic in the early nineteenth century (Cummings, 1949,p. 22). Gasoline-powered internal combustion engines had only recently becomeavailable and it was their adaptation to ice-cutting circular saws that enabled thiscost-saving innovation for natural ice harvesting. It is possible that the adaptationwas driven by the substitution threat, but given that an attempt had been made tointroduce the circular saw technology when such a threat did not exist, it is alsopossible that the gasoline-powered circular saw was developed and diffused fornormal competitive reasons. Another author, Anderson, acknowledges that thesesaws were being introduced in the 'ordinary course of events', but claims (withoutfurther evidence) that competition 'undoubtedly' accelerated the diffusion(Anderson, 1953, p. 107). A little more detail is available in Jones, who writes ofa firm, Gifford-Wood, that introduced power saws around 1918, well into thedecline of the natural harvesting industry (Jones, 1984, p. 65). The firm claimedits power saws replaced five horse ploughs. On ce again, we do not know the think-ing behind the introduction of this innovation. We know that internal combustionengines were displacing animals and steam engines as sources of power through-out the economy in this period of the twentieth century. We know that whateverthe productivity advantages of Gifford Wood's machine, it did not prevent orperhaps even delay the eclipse of the harvesting industry - the 1920s saw the bank-ruptcy of many firms. The ice harvesting industry is hardly a convincing exampleof the sailing ship effect.

The gas lighting industry at first sight appears to provide a stunning exampleof the sailing ship effect - the radical innovation of the 'Welsbach mantle', whichincreased gas luminescence by a factor of five, per unit of gas burnt (Bright, 1947).However, while the Welsbach mantle certainly aided the gas lighting industry, it isnot an example of the sailing ship effect. Welsbach was an independent inventor-entrepreneur, an A ustrian who founded and ran his own electric lighting com pany


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RESPONSE TO TECHNO LOGICAL COMPETITION 9 0 5could only be obtained by extraction from ores rich in other rare earth elementssuch as tungsten, iridium and osmium. As the gas mantle became standard, andthe market for thorium and cerium grew, the other rare earth metals became cheapand available for experimen tation. So we have the parad ox that the success of theWelsbach gas mand e helped m ake research possible into rare earth m etal fila-ments, research that would eventually result in the elimination of gas lightingby the tungsten filament (Bright, 1949, p. 168). Far from Welsbach having anycom mitmen t to the 'gas indus try', Welsbach himself would contribute to its finaldestruction as a source of lighting. He developed his work on the gas mande byattempting to pass current through filaments of platinum coated with thoriumoxide. When this failed (because of the different coefficients of thermal expansion)he produced the first successful metallic filament lamp, which used an osmiumfilament (Bright, 1949, p. 174). Millions were sold; it was clearly superior to thecarbon filament lamp that Edison had successfully innovated, and a new general'trajectory' of research was opened.

Welsbach may have helped to prolong the gas industry's hold over the lightingmarket; he then helped to destroy it. He is perhaps better characterized as a leading'lighting' innovator, without particular commitment to the vested gas or electriclighting technologies. His ability to produ ce the Welsbach mande reveals the inad-equacy of the New York gas comp anies ' response to Edison's carbon-filamen t elec-tric light, they did not develop the most effective counter-strategy - appropria teresearch and development.The Prospects for the Sailing Ship EffectThis article has necessarily been concerned with just a few cases that purportedto demonstrate the sailing ship effect and has shown that there is no strong empiri-cal evidence for the effect's existence and that there are good general grounds fordoubting its widespread existence.However, all of the cases considered here are examples of the response to radicaltechnological substitution threats, in nineteenth century 'pre-modern' industriescharacterized by small, fragmented firms - these appear to have been interpretedas demonstrations of the sailing ship effect in preference to cases of more moderntechnologies. This is a highly selective group of examples; we might seek caseswhich varied by having some or all of the following: less 'radical' substitutionthreats, oligopolistic or monopoly control of markets, multi-technology firms orfirms that had established R&D departments. This is largely beyond the scopeof this paper, but we might have more reason to find the effect in modernindustries.The best prospect for finding an 'induced' acceleration in successful innovationmust be where the actual rate of innovation has fallen below the potential rate forsome reason. Two scenarios where accelerated innovation may be demonstrableare, firsdy, where a fragmented industry structure has prevented sufficient marketcontrol for the foundation of R&D activity. Increased threat may trigger firstcartelization, then the consequent foundation of R&D activity, then an increasedrate of innovation; the first two events actually happened in the alkali case, but we


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906 J. HOWELLSsuppression' (Dunford, 1987). If Dunford's many examples are valid, these 'sup-pressed' technologies may be more vigorously exploited only when an alternative,threatening technology emerges that is uncontrolled by the monopoly firm, whena new entrant to these suppressed technologies appears, or when the state sues themonopolist.

Finally, if the sailing ship effect is likely to be a rarity in the wider economy thisimplies a simplification of the strategic choices offirmsfacing a substitution threat.They must decide whether or not to exit the established technology, and if sowhether or not to 'switch' to the threaten ing technology.

REFERENCESANDERSON, O . E . (1953). Refrigeration in America. London: Oxford Universi ty Press.BRAUN, E . and MACDONALD, S . (1982). Revolution in Miniature. C a m b r i d g e : C a m b r i d g e

University Press.BRIGHT, A. (1949). Tke Electric Lamp Industry. New York: Macmil lan.COOPER, A. C. and SCHENDEL, D . (1988). 'Strategic responses to technological threats ' . In

T u s h m a n , M . L. and M o o r e , W. L. (Eds), Readings in the Management of Innovation, 2ndedi t ion. London: Harper Col l ins.

COOPER, A. C. and SMITH, C . C . (1992). 'How established firms respond to t h rea ten ingtechnologies ' . Academy of Management Executive, 6, 2.

CUMMINGS, R . Q (1949). Tke American Ice Harvesters: A Historical Study in Technology,1800-1918. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

DuNEORD, R. (1987). 'The suppression of technology as a strategy for controll ing resourced e p e n d e n c e ' . Administrative Science Quarterly, 32, 5 1 2 - 2 5 .FLETTNER, A . (1926). Tke Story of tke Rotor. M t Vernon , NY: F O WUlholft.

FOSTER, R . N . (1988). 'Timing technological transit ions' . In T u s h m a n , M . L. and M o o r e ,W. L. (Eds), Readings in tke Management of Innovation, 2nd edi t ion. London: Harper Col l ins.

GILFILLAN, S. C . (1935a). Inventing tke Skip. Chicago: Follet t .CiLFiLLAN, S. C . (1935b). Tke Sociology of Invention. C a m b r i d g e , MA: MI T Press.HABER, L . F (1958). Tke Ckemical Industry during tke Mneteentk Century. Oxford: Oxford

University Press.HARLEY, C . K . (1971). 'The shift from sailing ships to steamships, 1850-1890: a study in

technological change an d its diffusion'. In McCloskey, D. N. (Ed.), Essays on a MatureEconomy: Britain after 1840. L o n d o n : M e t h u e n .JONES, J. C. (1984) America's Icemen - An Illustrative History of tke United States Natural IceIndustry 1665-1925. Hum ble , TX : Jobe co Books.

L INDE R T, P. H. and T R A C E , K . (1971). 'Yardsticks for Victorian en trep ren eur s'. InMcCloskey, D. N. (Ed.), Essays on a Mature Economy: Britain after 1840. L o n d o n : M e t h u e n .

READER, W. J. (1970). Imperial Ckemical Industries -A History. London: Oxford Universi tyPress.

ROLT, L . T. C . (1957). Isambard Kingdom Brunei. H a r m o n d sw o r t h : P e n g u i n .ROSENBERG, N . (1976). Perspectives on Tecknology. Cambr idge : Cambr idge Unive rs i ty P ress .ROTHWELL, R . and ZEGVELD, W. (1985). Reindustrialisation an d Tecknology. L o n d o n : L o n g m a n .SCHUMPETER, J. (1943). Capitalism, Socialism an d Democracy. London: Al len and U n w i n .UAC (United Alkali Company) (1907). The Struggle for Supremacy. Liverpool, Walmsley:

Uni ted Alkal i Company.


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