Diffusion of new technology and complementary best practice: a case study

Henriksen, Ingrid and Hviid, Morten (2005) Diffusion of new technology and complementary best practice: a case study. European Review of Economic History, 9 (03). pp. 365-397. ISSN 1361-4916

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Abstract

During the late nineteenth century, technologies to measure the quality of the milk in butter production became available, enabling creameries to pay suppliers of raw milk according to quality. Having identified the advantages to the creameries in terms of incentive provision, we demonstrate that the diffusion among the cooperative creameries was relatively slow, particularly relative to other technologies adopted by the same creameries over the same period, with a large number ‘dragging their feet’. We also observe that late adopters often did not choose the most up-to-date technology and that early adopters who later upgraded their technology in many cases did not choose the current best practice. We consider a number of reasons for the observed patterns, which are at odds with the co-operative creameries being seen as technologically ‘savvy’. A proper implementation created both winners and losers among suppliers, and the size of these widened with newer versions of the technology. We show that the slow and inappropriate implementation can be explained by the need to get the technology accepted by a sufficient number of suppliers.

Item Type:	Article
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Law
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Competition, Markets and Regulation Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Research Centres > Business and Local Government Data Research Centre (former - to 2023) Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Media, Information Technology and Intellectual Property Law Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Centres > Centre for Competition Policy
Depositing User:	Julie Frith
Date Deposited:	16 Nov 2010 09:45
Last Modified:	28 Mar 2025 04:12
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/10815
DOI:	10.1017/s1361491605001553

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