IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/69819.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Transfer of European technologies and their adaptations: the case of the Bengal silk industry in the late-eighteenth century

Author

Listed:
  • Hutková, Karolina

Abstract

This article investigates the adaptations of Italian silk technologies to the environment of Bengal. The case is particularly interesting as the English East India Company (EEIC) invested considerable effort into making the technologies operational in the new climatic and socio-economic context. The article highlights the unequal focus on technical adaptations, although it points out that commercial and economic, and social adaptations were not completely neglected. It concludes that the key obstacle for the commercial success of the transferred technologies was the lack of attention to institutional adaptations. Institutional problems that arose were the result of lack of leadership and managerial innovations on the part of the company rather than the technology itself.

Suggested Citation

  • Hutková, Karolina, 2017. "Transfer of European technologies and their adaptations: the case of the Bengal silk industry in the late-eighteenth century," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 69819, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
  • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:69819
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/69819/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robinson, Eric H., 1974. "The Early Diffusion of Steam Power," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 34(1), pages 91-107, March.
    2. Edwin Mansfield, 1988. "The Speed and Cost of Industrial Innovation in Japan and the United States: External vs. Internal Technology," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 34(10), pages 1157-1168, October.
    3. Lall, Sanjaya, 1992. "Technological capabilities and industrialization," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 165-186, February.
    4. David J. Teece, 2008. "Technology and Technology Transfer: Mansfieldian Inspirations and Subsequent Developments," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: The Transfer And Licensing Of Know-How And Intellectual Property Understanding the Multinational Enterprise in the Modern World, chapter 4, pages 47-63, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    5. Mansfield, Edwin, 1975. "International Technology Transfer: Forms, Resource Requirements, and Policies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 65(2), pages 372-376, May.
    6. Edwin Mansfield & Anthony Romeo, 1980. "Technology Transfer to Overseas Subsidiaries by U. S.-Based Firms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 95(4), pages 737-750.
    7. Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, 1966. "Cultural and Social Constraints on Technological Innovation and Economic Development : Some Case Studies," The Indian Economic & Social History Review, , vol. 3(3), pages 240-267, September.
    8. Hejeebu, Santhi, 2005. "Contract Enforcement in the English East India Company," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 65(2), pages 496-523, June.
    9. Janet HUNTER, 2011. "Technology Transfer and the Gendering of Communications Work: Meiji Japan in Comparative Historical Perspective," Social Science Japan Journal, University of Tokyo and Oxford University Press, vol. 14(1), pages 1-20.
    10. Davini, Roberto, 2009. "Bengali raw silk, the East India Company and the European global market, 1770–1833," Journal of Global History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 4(1), pages 57-79, March.
    11. Evenson, Robert, 1974. "International Diffusion of Agrarian Technology," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 34(1), pages 51-73, March.
    12. Carlos, Ann M. & Nicholas, Stephen, 1990. "Agency Problems in Early Chartered Companies: The Case of the Hudson’s Bay Company," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 50(4), pages 853-875, December.
    13. Eugene Choi, 2009. "Entrepreneurial leadership in the Meiji cotton spinners' early conceptualisation of global competition," Business History, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(6), pages 927-958.
    14. Jeremy, David J., 1973. "British Textile Technology Transmission to the United States: The Philadelphia Region Experience, 1770–1820," Business History Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 47(1), pages 24-52, April.
    15. Tomoko Hashino, 2012. "Institutionalising Technical Education: The Case Of Weaving Districts In Meiji Japan," Australian Economic History Review, Economic History Society of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 52(1), pages 25-42, March.
    16. Kiyokawa, Yukihiko, 1987. "Transplantation of the European Factory System and Adaptations in Japan : The Experience of the Tomioka Model Filature," Hitotsubashi Journal of Economics, Hitotsubashi University, vol. 28(1), pages 27-39, June.
    17. Mansfield, Edwin & Wagner, Samuel, 1975. "Organizational and Strategic Factors Associated with Probabilities of Success in Industrial R & D," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 48(2), pages 179-198, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kuldeep Singh & Madhvendra Misra, 2021. "Developing an agricultural entrepreneur inclination model for sustainable agriculture by integrating expert mining and ISM–MICMAC," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 23(4), pages 5122-5150, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Argentino Pessoa, 2008. "Multinational Corporations, Foreign Investment, and Royalties and License Fees: Effects on Host-Country Total Factor Productivity," Notas Económicas, Faculty of Economics, University of Coimbra, issue 28, pages 6-31, December.
    2. Yang, Der-Yuan, 2008. "On the elements and practices of monitoring," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 65(3-4), pages 654-666, March.
    3. Mike Crone & Stephen Roper, 2001. "Local Learning from Multinational Plants: Knowledge Transfers in the Supply Chain," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(6), pages 535-548.
    4. Damijan, Jože P. & Kostevc, Crt, 2007. "Knowledge Transfer, Innovation and Growth," Papers DYNREG06, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    5. James R. Markusen, 1995. "The Boundaries of Multinational Enterprises and the Theory of International Trade," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 9(2), pages 169-189, Spring.
    6. Mathew Manimala & K. Thomas, 2013. "Learning Needs of Technology Transfer: Coping with Discontinuities and Disruptions," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 4(4), pages 511-539, December.
    7. Ömer Özak, 2018. "Distance to the pre-industrial technological frontier and economic development," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 175-221, June.
    8. Jeffrey Cummings, 2003. "Knowledge Sharing : A Review of the Literature," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 19060.
    9. Giuliani, Elisa & Martinelli, Arianna & Rabellotti, Roberta, 2016. "Is Co-Invention Expediting Technological Catch Up? A Study of Collaboration between Emerging Country Firms and EU Inventors," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 192-205.
    10. Jan Fagerberg & Bengt-Åke Lundvall & Martin Srholec, 2018. "Global Value Chains, National Innovation Systems and Economic Development," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 30(3), pages 533-556, July.
    11. Jan Fagerberg & Martin Srholec, 2017. "Global Dynamics, Capabilities and the Crisis," Economic Complexity and Evolution, in: Andreas Pyka & Uwe Cantner (ed.), Foundations of Economic Change, pages 83-106, Springer.
    12. Alexis Habiyaremye, 2008. "Economic Proximity and Technology Flows: South Africa's Influence and the Role of Technological Interaction in Botswana's Diversification Effort," WIDER Working Paper Series RP2008-92, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    13. Fofack, Hippolyte, 2008. "Technology trap and poverty trap in Sub-Saharan Africa," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4582, The World Bank.
    14. Sanjaya Malik, 2015. "Conditional technology spillovers from foreign direct investment: evidence from Indian manufacturing industries," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 43(2), pages 183-198, April.
    15. Arti Grover, 2008. "Vertical FDI versus Outsourcing: A Welfare Comparison from the Perspective of the Host Country," DEGIT Conference Papers c013_009, DEGIT, Dynamics, Economic Growth, and International Trade.
    16. Tagscherer, Ulrike, 2015. "Science-Industry-Linkages in China: Motivation, Models and Success Factors for Collaborations of MNCs with Chinese Academia," Discussion Papers "Innovation Systems and Policy Analysis" 47, Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (ISI).
    17. Sidia Moreno Rojas & Agueda García Carrillo, 2014. "Sistema para la evaluación de capacidades de innovación en pymes de países en desarrollo: caso Panamá," Revista Facultad de Ciencias Económicas, Universidad Militar Nueva Granada, vol. 0(2), pages 109-122, December.
    18. Maria Cipollina & Giorgia Giovannetti & Filomena Pietrovito & Alberto F. Pozzolo, 2012. "FDI and Growth: What Cross-country Industry Data Say," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(11), pages 1599-1629, November.
    19. Maria JOSE SILVA & Gastão SOUSA & Jacinta MOREIRA & Jorge SIMÕES, 2011. "Innovation Activities in the Service Sector: Empirical Evidence from Portuguese Firms," Journal of Knowledge Management, Economics and Information Technology, ScientificPapers.org, vol. 1(6), pages 1-17, October.
    20. Wignaraja, Ganeshan, 2008. "FDI and Innovation as Drivers of Export Behaviour: Firm-level Evidence from East Asia," MERIT Working Papers 2008-061, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    adaptation; technology transfer; Bengal silk industry; English East India Company; entrepreneurship and managerial innovations;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J50 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ehl:lserod:69819. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    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.