Sailing Ship Effect Essay Example for Free

Sailing Ship Effect EssayMGMT002 Technology World swap AY 2009-2010, Term 2 Student Paper Review, Howells (2002) The response of old technology incumbents to technological competition sailing displace gist exist? Prepared for Dr Terence rooter Prepared by Nicole Isabella Aw Su Sien (G14) Does the Howells presents the audience with a critical view of the sailing ship effect and postulates that it is triggered by misinterpretations based on insufficient knowledge, and that the mer. This sailing ship effect is the rocess whereby the advent of a new technology engenders a response aimed at improving the incumbent technology. I am inclined to Howells view and willing further demonstrate this below. There is evidence to believe that the sailing ship effect is vivacious in the world today. Cooper and Schendel (1988) considered 7 different cases and I would like to focus on the case between vacuum tubes and the transistor.A simple timeline of the development of the vacuum tubes has shown that the old technology (vacuum tubes) ontinued to be improved and reached its laid-backest tier of technical development only after the new technology (transistor) was introduced. Nonetheless, there is still insufficient evidence to definitely conclude that the sailing ship effect did take place. The sailing ship effect is challenged due to the number of externalities involved in the technological development of any product, making it difficult to conclude that speed improvements made by incumbent technology is driven solely by the emergence of new ones.Granted, there is a timely connection between the reach of new technologies and the accelerated improvement of old ones, however, one must question the genuine motivation for this action (government funding, normal intra- industry competition, lock-in effect or arriver of new technology). The Flettner rotor ship, for example, was a government-inspired project. Research and Development (RD) is essential in the improvem ent of any technology.The availability of funds is a problem many firms face, however, with high barriers to entry coupled by inancial support from the government, it is non difficult to understand how this could provide the impetus for accelerated improvement of a technology as a firm would want to gain monopoly in the industry. In the Alkali industry, the Claus-Chance process was already in the works before the threat of the Leblanc process. This improvements are still world made. I believe that the extent of the sailing ship effect can also be related to the substitutability of the old and new technologies.The more substitutable the new technology is, the greater need to invest in the improvement of the old technology to maintain competitiveness in the market (assuming the firm does not exit the industry or switch from old to new technology). This could be a factor, which allows the coexistence of both old and new technology. The advancement of cameras today illustrates the af orementioned idea. condescension the technological advancement of cameras (from film to digital), digital cameras and film cameras still coexist in the arket because of their relatively low substitutability (as film photography is different from that of digital photography).It would be fallacious to argue that the lack of evidence of the sailing ship effect would mean that it is non-existent. Therefore, I do not believe that this effect is non- existent but support Howells viewpoint on the rarity of the sailing ship effect because it is too superficial to claim that the advent of new technologies provided the main effort force for the accelerated improvement of old technologies.