Is the “sailing-ship effect” misnamed? A statistical inquiry of the case sail vs steam in maritime transportation

IF 2.8 4区管理学 Q2 BUSINESS

Industrial and Corporate Change Pub Date : 2023-04-07 DOI:10.1093/icc/dtad012

Nicola De Liso, Serena Arima, G. Filatrella

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Abstract

Improvements experienced by incumbent “old” technologies when threatened by new ones, potentially supplanting them, are often addressed as the “sailing-ship effect.” The latter phrase points to the eponymous case that consists of the 60-year or so technological battle between sail and steam in ships’ propulsion during the 19th century, which led to unexpected large advancements in sail technology. Paradoxically, until today, the only work which addressed quantitatively that technological battle actually found a lack of evidence of the occurrence of the sailing-ship effect. In this paper, through fresh statistical analysis, we find instead confirmation of the existence of the effect in the original case. This finding contributes to the theoretical debate that explains technological persistence through mechanisms such as path dependence, cumulativeness, localized technical progress, competence and cognitive traps, the presence of complementary assets and tributary innovations, as well as institutional features. Policy dimensions are considered in Section 7 of the work.

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“帆船效应”是否命名不当?海上运输中帆船与蒸汽的统计调查

现有的“旧”技术在受到新技术威胁时所经历的改进，可能会取代它们，这通常被称为“帆船效应”。后一个短语指的是19世纪帆船和蒸汽在船舶推进方面长达60年左右的技术之争，这导致了帆船技术意想不到的巨大进步。矛盾的是，直到今天，唯一从数量上解决技术战争的工作实际上发现缺乏帆船效应发生的证据。在本文中，通过新的统计分析，我们发现在原来的情况下，这种效应的存在得到了证实。这一发现有助于通过路径依赖、累积性、本地化技术进步、能力和认知陷阱、互补资产和支流创新的存在以及制度特征等机制来解释技术持久性的理论争论。政策维度在工作的第7节中被考虑。

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来源期刊

Industrial and Corporate Change Multiple-

CiteScore

5.10

自引率

4.00%

发文量

期刊介绍： The journal covers the following: the internal structures of firms; the history of technologies; the evolution of industries; the nature of competition; the decision rules and strategies; the relationship between firms" characteristics and the institutional environment; the sociology of management and of the workforce; the performance of industries over time; the labour process and the organization of production; the relationship between, and boundaries of, organizations and markets; the nature of the learning process underlying technological and organizational change.