IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/bushst/v62y2020i6p960-981.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Strategic responses to low-cost competition: Technological lock-in in the Dundee jute industry

Author

Listed:
  • Swapnesh K. Masrani
  • Peter McKiernan
  • Alan McKinlay

Abstract

This article examines path dependency and technological lock-in in the evolution of the Dundee jute industry, from its beginnings in the 1860s to its demise in the 1970s. The evolution of the industry is explored using the resource-based view of the firm (RBV). The results suggest that the nature and construct of jute fibre was the root cause of a lack of sustainable strategic responses in the sector. Path dependent decisions and technological lock-in meant that many firms were not able to make successful strategic switches, although the capabilities of their engineering skills allowed some firms to endure for longer. Thus, the article extends the RBV to a deeper firm capability level and complements cognate literature on the UK textile sector with a finer specification of the phases in jute’s evolution.

Suggested Citation

  • Swapnesh K. Masrani & Peter McKiernan & Alan McKinlay, 2020. "Strategic responses to low-cost competition: Technological lock-in in the Dundee jute industry," Business History, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 62(6), pages 960-981, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:bushst:v:62:y:2020:i:6:p:960-981
    DOI: 10.1080/00076791.2018.1502750
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00076791.2018.1502750
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00076791.2018.1502750?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:bushst:v:62:y:2020:i:6:p:960-981. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/FBSH20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.