Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables
- List of figures
- Preface
- Map showing location of firms
- 1 Technology and European growth
- 2 The historiography of European industrialization
- 3 Britain and Norway, 1800–1845: two transitions
- 4 Acquisition of technologies by the Norwegian textile firms
- 5 Flows of technological information
- 6 British textile engineering and the Norwegian textile industry
- 7 British agents of Norwegian enterprises
- 8 British workers and the transfer of technology to Norway
- 9 Interrelations among Norwegian firms
- 10 The European dimension
- Appendices
- Bibliography
- Index
10 - The European dimension
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables
- List of figures
- Preface
- Map showing location of firms
- 1 Technology and European growth
- 2 The historiography of European industrialization
- 3 Britain and Norway, 1800–1845: two transitions
- 4 Acquisition of technologies by the Norwegian textile firms
- 5 Flows of technological information
- 6 British textile engineering and the Norwegian textile industry
- 7 British agents of Norwegian enterprises
- 8 British workers and the transfer of technology to Norway
- 9 Interrelations among Norwegian firms
- 10 The European dimension
- Appendices
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
To what extent were the technological diffusion processes, which have been described in the above chapters, typical of other firms and other countries in the nineteenth century? In focussing on the technological, rather than the economic or commercial bases of Norwegian textile development, this study has concentrated – in terms both of sources and treatment – on the recipients of technology, and on the technological problems which British suppliers solved for them. The central theme has been the importance of active, expansionary market-seeking by the British textile engineering industry, and by the specialized agencies which sold its products. The existence of this industry, and its readiness to supply a complex array of information, equipment and labour, seems to have been a primary condition for the rapidity with which a modern, mechanized textile industry was constructed in Norway from the mid 1840s. What might have been a major bottleneck in the diffusion process, namely the engineering inexperience and relative lack of technical expertise among Norwegian textile entrepreneurs and workers, was overcome through the willingness of British machinery makers and suppliers to provide not only equipment but, in effect, technological packages comprising a wide range of technical services. These ‘packages’ included:
basic information on the technical requirements of new enterprises and on the availability of techniques,
the evaluation and assessment of innovations,
help with choice of technique,
the supply of drawings and blueprints,
provision of cost and output projections,
the supply of machinery and all ancillary equipment.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- British Technology and European IndustrializationThe Norwegian Textile Industry in the Mid-Nineteenth Century, pp. 147 - 154Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1989