The challenge of a new technology

The “technological transition” from electron tube technology to transistor technology marks a watershed in the business activities and technological orientations of the electrical industry at the end of the 1940s and the early 1950s. The example of Siemens and Philips will show in detail how each of the two firms dealt with this technological change. The paper follows two perspectives: Firstly, the relationship between new technology and old tradition within the R&D laboratories, the scientific challenge. Secondly, the relationship between new technology and old tradition on the board of management, the managerial challenge. It seems to be obvious that the “high voltage past”, with its long and steady innovation cycles as well as the “low voltage tradition”, with its short and inconstant innovation cycles were of decisive influence on the strategic and scientific response. Despite the differences both Siemens and Philips at first succeeded but then, in the long run, failed to manage the technological change and suffered from technological backwardness from the late 1960s and early 1970s onwards

Backwardness · Business · Economic growth · Economics · Electrical engineering · History of technology · Management · Siemens · Technological change · Engineering · History · History of Computing Technologies · Twentieth Century Scientific Developments

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