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Investigating the Sailing Ship Effect as Newcomers’ Strategic Reaction to Technological Change

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Empowering Organizations

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Information Systems and Organisation ((LNISO,volume 11))

Abstract

This paper is aimed at investigating the sailing ship effect as strategic reaction of newcomers that enter into a new market for adopting and improving old technology than new one when technological change occurs. Based on the case-study method, we conducted a qualitative analysis for collect data on a peculiar company, The Impossible Project, was born to meet the instant photo amateur needs after Polaroid stopped producing instant cameras. Unlike most of the incumbents’ and newcomers’ behaviors, the Impossible Project is a rare case of a company that entry into a new market niche for focusing on the old technology, than other one, when technological change occurs. This empirical evidence has shown an opposite strategic behavior to technological change, providing interesting insights for research and practice.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Unlike Howell research, other scholars have also identified a fourth type of strategic reaction: a combination of sailing ship effect and switch [13]. In this way, companies both keep their presence in the old market and enter in the new market.

  2. 2.

    The company had already stopped producing instant cameras for consumers the year before. Its global warehouses have only enough film to last until the end of 2009.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Management and Economics, “Parthenope” University, Naples, Italy

    Rocco Agrifoglio

  2. Department of Management Studies and Quantitative Methods, “Parthenope” University, Naples, Italy

    Francesco Schiavone

  3. Department of Science and Technology Studies, “Parthenope” University, Naples, Italy

    Concetta Metallo

Authors
  1. Rocco Agrifoglio
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  2. Francesco Schiavone
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  3. Concetta Metallo
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Rocco Agrifoglio .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy

    Teresina Torre

  2. Department of Economics and Business, Tuscia University, Viterbo, Italy

    Alessio Maria Braccini

  3. University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy

    Riccardo Spinelli

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Agrifoglio, R., Schiavone, F., Metallo, C. (2016). Investigating the Sailing Ship Effect as Newcomers’ Strategic Reaction to Technological Change. In: Torre, T., Braccini, A., Spinelli, R. (eds) Empowering Organizations. Lecture Notes in Information Systems and Organisation, vol 11. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23784-8_4

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