Abstract
I examine the processes and mechanisms whereby market demand for a “dying” technology re-emerges at a later date. In 1983, fourteen years after the introduction of the first quartz watch, mechanical watches, along with the Swiss Jura community of watchmakers who built them, were thought to be “dead” (Landes, 1983). Unexpectedly, however, by 2008 the Swiss mechanical watchmaking industry had re-emerged as the world’s leading exporter (in monetary value) of watches. Using qualitative and quantitative analysis, which I apply to a wealth of data, I show how changes in product, organizational, and community identities associated with a legacy technology can be reconstituted to reconfigure a field. My findings highlight that three mechanisms – identity claims, leadership, and framing (i.e., temporal, linguistic, value) – are core to explaining field re-emergence. Although new or discontinuous technologies tend to displace older ones, legacy technologies that are seemingly “dead” can re-emerge, thrive, and even ...
Highlights
My research setting is the Swiss watchmaking industry from 1970 to 2008, an opportune context because it was considered to be the premier symbol of technological supremacy and innovation for several centuries (Glasmeier, 2000; Sobel, 1996)
Product Identity (H1) Overall, my findings support hypothesis 1, proposing that product identity redefinition is associated with the re-emergence of market demand for a legacy technology
I began my inquiry with a question: Can market demand for “dying” technologies in a mature field re-emerge and re-shape it? I sought answers in my study of Swiss watchmaking, during the period 1970-2008, in an historical analysis of the field and the ways in which product, organizational, and community identity shifted with the introduction of a discontinuous technology and the reclamation of a legacy technology
Summary
My research setting is the Swiss watchmaking industry from 1970 to 2008, an opportune context because it was considered to be the premier symbol of technological supremacy and innovation for several centuries (Glasmeier, 2000; Sobel, 1996). Swiss watchmakers dominated the industry and the mechanical watch movement for nearly two centuries (Donze, 2011), beginning in the mid-18th century. I examine how the identity of the Swiss watchmaking community experienced significant change, as master craftsmen were forced to evaluate their centuries-old profession in light of the electronic quartz watches that had claimed a significant portion of their industry. That technological shifts ushered in identity and field-level change is perhaps not a surprise (Barley, 1986); what is a surprise, was the potent re-emergence of the “dying technology” of mechanical watch movements along with the re-coupling of watch and (Swiss) community. I show how industries and fields can be reconstituted such that technologies – and associated product, organization, and community identities – can re-emerge as influential and powerful collectives
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