Introduction

The invention of the transistor in 1947 ushered electronics into a new era. Although access to transistor technology was relatively open, France and Japan responded differently to the opportunities offered by the new technology. This chapter compares their national responses to semiconductor technology, particularly transistors, up to the mid-1960s. Semiconductor diffusion occurred faster in Japan than in France and this had important industrial competitiveness consequences. Partly as a result of historical patterns of state action (or lack thereof) and societal arrangements, by 1972 there was no French firm among the world's top ten semiconductor firms, and only one among the top twenty (Webbink 1977, p. 22). In contrast, there were two Japanese firms among the top ten and five among the top twenty. By 1960 Japanese transistor production was larger than French. Early technological choices shaped the future competitiveness of the national industry in semiconductors.

Conventional views portray Japanese society and state as forward looking and fascinated with material progress. Since the Meiji restoration Japanese society has been eager to adopt modernity and build upon it. In contrast, France, her society and state, are portrayed as conservative with regard to new technologies at least until World War II. Formalistic explanations which analyse the cultural form of resistance hide the historically contingent and political nature of that resistance. To identify cultural, market or societal differences may be a sufficient explanation of resistance from a functionalist viewpoint but it fails to uncover the process characteristics of the phenomenon, which is an important resource for collective action.