Overview

Since the large-scale manufacture of personal timepieces began, industry leadership has shifted among widely disparate locations, production systems, and cultures. This book presents a richly textured historical study of the quest for supremacy in the manufacture of watches - from the cottage industries of Britain; to the preeminence of Switzerland, and later, the United States; to the high-tech plants of Japan and the sweatshops of Hong Kong. Glasmeier examines both the strategies adopted by specific firms and the interplay of such varying influences as technological change, cyclical economic downturns, war, and national trade policies. In so doing, she delineates a cohesive framework within which to address such broader questions as how sustained regional economic development takes place (or starts and then stops); how decisions made by corporations are structured by internal and external forces: and the ways industrial cultures with different strategic learning capabilities facilitate or thwart the pursuit of technological change.

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9781572305892

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Reviews

An original and penetrating study of the evolution of the global watch industry. Glasmeier takes us from the Swiss watch industry to the world of electronics in the last years of the 20th century. She has created a remarkable story of an industry and its regions. --Gordon L. Clark, Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography, University of Oxford<br><br> Amy Glasmeier has written an excellent historical synthesis of the institutional and organizational conditions that have shaped industrial development and international competition in the watch industry over the past two centuries. This book is an important addition to a small but growing number of industry case studies that show how the same social forces that supported national industrial leadership in the past can inhibit responses to international competitive challenges. Glasmeier has provided a thought-provoking study of both the sources of institutional inertia and the dynamics of industrial change. --William Lazonick, Euro-Asia Research Centre, INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France<br><br> This book takes on all of the big questions in industrial history and geography. Along the way, it yields important insights into how knowledge is produced and contested within specific industrial cultures; how market 'signals' are received and understood, depending on how they are transmitted and by whom; and the thousand things that can go right or wrong in an industry--with immense consequences for people and the places in which they live. --Erica Schoenberger, Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering, Johns Hopkins University<br>

An original and penetrating study of the evolution of the global watch industry. Glasmeier takes us from the Swiss watch industry to the world of electronics in the last years of the 20th century. She has created a remarkable story of an industry and its regions. --Gordon L. Clark, Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography, University of Oxford Amy Glasmeier has written an excellent historical synthesis of the institutional and organizational conditions that have shaped industrial development and international competition in the watch industry over the past two centuries. This book is an important addition to a small but growing number of industry case studies that show how the same social forces that supported national industrial leadership in the past can inhibit responses to international competitive challenges. Glasmeier has provided a thought-provoking study of both the sources of institutional inertia and the dynamics of industrial change. --William Lazonick, Euro-Asia Research Centre, INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France This book takes on all of the big questions in industrial history and geography. Along the way, it yields important insights into how knowledge is produced and contested within specific industrial cultures; how market 'signals' are received and understood, depending on how they are transmitted and by whom; and the thousand things that can go right or wrong in an industry--with immense consequences for people and the places in which they live. --Erica Schoenberger, Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering, Johns Hopkins University -

An original and penetrating study of the evolution of the global watch industry. Glasmeier takes us from the Swiss watch industry to the world of electronics in the last years of the 20th century. She has created a remarkable story of an industry and its regions. --Gordon L. Clark, Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography, University of Oxford Amy Glasmeier has written an excellent historical synthesis of the institutional and organizational conditions that have shaped industrial development and international competition in the watch industry over the past two centuries. This book is an important addition to a small but growing number of industry case studies that show how the same social forces that supported national industrial leadership in the past can inhibit responses to international competitive challenges. Glasmeier has provided a thought-provoking study of both the sources of institutional inertia and the dynamics of industrial change. --William Lazonick, Euro-Asia Research Centre, INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France This book takes on all of the big questions in industrial history and geography. Along the way, it yields important insights into how knowledge is produced and contested within specific industrial cultures; how market 'signals' are received and understood, depending on how they are transmitted and by whom; and the thousand things that can go right or wrong in an industry--with immense consequences for people and the places in which they live. --Erica Schoenberger, Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering, Johns Hopkins University

An original and penetrating study of the evolution of the global watch industry. Glasmeier takes us from the Swiss watch industry to the world of electronics in the last years of the 20th century. She has created a remarkable story of an industry and its regions. --Gordon L. Clark, Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography, University of Oxford Amy Glasmeier has written an excellent historical synthesis of the institutional and organizational conditions that have shaped industrial development and international competition in the watch industry over the past two centuries. This book is an important addition to a small but growing number of industry case studies that show how the same social forces that supported national industrial leadership in the past can inhibit responses to international competitive challenges. Glasmeier has provided a thought-provoking study of both the sources of institutional inertia and the dynamics of industrial change. --William Lazonick, Euro-Asia Research Centre, INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France This book takes on all of the big questions in industrial history and geography. Along the way, it yields important insights into how knowledge is produced and contested within specific industrial cultures; how market 'signals' are received and understood, depending on how they are transmitted and by whom; and the thousand things that can go right or wrong in an industry--with immense consequences for people and the places in which they live. --Erica Schoenberger, Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering, Johns Hopkins University Despite its postmodern-sounding title, Manufacturing Time, is a straightforward study of the watch industry that should be of considerable interest to students and aficionados of industry studies. It traces the history of timekeeping and the development of the watch over two centuries and across five countries on three continents: Great Britain, Switzerland, the United States, Japan, and Hong Kong/China....this book is an impressive effort and fulfills the author's stated 'hope to suggest something about the contingent nature of development. -- Economic Geography .,. a brilliant and thought-provoking study. Her book sheds light not only on the industry she chooses but on the process of industrial change and location generally....The book is exceptionally well written, carefully documented, and enhanced by some 30 statistical tables and a number of maps and figures....a splendid book, significant in topic, readable in style, and scholarly in approach. -- Business History .,. an overview of international competition in the watch industry for the past two hundred years. Amy Glasmeier describes how the lead in the watch industry shifted over time and space from Great Britain, to Switzerland, to the United States, back to Switzerland and then, in the age of electronics, to Japan and Hong Kong. This ambitious and useful synthesis looks for larger clues as to why industries fail or succeed. -- Technology and Culture

An original and penetrating study of the evolution of the global watch industry. Glasmeier takes us from the Swiss watch industry to the world of electronics in the last years of the 20th century. She has created a remarkable story of an industry and its regions. --Gordon L. Clark, Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography, University of Oxford Amy Glasmeier has written an excellent historical synthesis of the institutional and organizational conditions that have shaped industrial development and international competition in the watch industry over the past two centuries. This book is an important addition to a small but growing number of industry case studies that show how the same social forces that supported national industrial leadership in the past can inhibit responses to international competitive challenges. Glasmeier has provided a thought-provoking study of both the sources of institutional inertia and the dynamics of industrial change. --William Lazonick, Euro-Asia Research Centre, INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France This book takes on all of the big questions in industrial history and geography. Along the way, it yields important insights into how knowledge is produced and contested within specific industrial cultures; how market 'signals' are received and understood, depending on how they are transmitted and by whom; and the thousand things that can go right or wrong in an industry--with immense consequences for people and the places in which they live. --Erica Schoenberger, Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering, Johns Hopkins University

Despite its postmodern-sounding title, Manufacturing Time, is a straightforward study of the watch industry that should be of considerable interest to students and aficionados of industry studies. It traces the history of timekeeping and the development of the watch over two centuries and across five countries on three continents: Great Britain, Switzerland, the United States, Japan, and Hong Kong/China....this book is an impressive effort and fulfills the author's stated 'hope to suggest something about the contingent nature of development. -- Economic Geography <br>.,. a brilliant and thought-provoking study. Her book sheds light not only on the industry she chooses but on the process of industrial change and location generally....The book is exceptionally well written, carefully documented, and enhanced by some 30 statistical tables and a number of maps and figures....a splendid book, significant in topic, readable in style, and scholarly in approach. -- Business History <br>.,. an overview of international competition in the watch industry for the past two hundred years. Amy Glasmeier describes how the lead in the watch industry shifted over time and space from Great Britain, to Switzerland, to the United States, back to Switzerland and then, in the age of electronics, to Japan and Hong Kong. This ambitious and useful synthesis looks for larger clues as to why industries fail or succeed. -- Technology and Culture <br>

An original and penetrating study of the evolution of the global watch industry. Glasmeier takes us from the Swiss watch industry to the world of electronics in the last years of the 20th century. She has created a remarkable story of an industry and its regions. --Gordon L. Clark, Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography, University of Oxford<br><br> Amy Glasmeier has written an excellent historical synthesis of the institutional and organizational conditions that have shaped industrial development and international competition in the watch industry over the past two centuries. This book is an important addition to a small but growing number of industry case studies that show how the same social forces that supported national industrial leadership in the past can inhibit responses to international competitive challenges. Glasmeier has provided a thought-provoking study of both the sources of institutional inertia and the dynamics of industrial change. --William Lazonick, Euro-Asia Research Centre, INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France<br><br> This book takes on all of the big questions in industrial history and geography. Along the way, it yields important insights into how knowledge is produced and contested within specific industrial cultures; how market 'signals' are received and understood, depending on how they are transmitted and by whom; and the thousand things that can go right or wrong in an industry--with immense consequences for people and the places in which they live. --Erica Schoenberger, Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering, Johns Hopkins University<br>

Author Information

Amy K. Glasmeier, PhD, is the director of the Center for Regional Research and Industrial Studies at the Institute for Policy Research and Evaluation, The Pennsylvania State University. She has published three books on international industrial and economic development and more than 50 scholarly articles. Her current research focuses on community impacts of globalization, regional development, poverty alleviation, and industrial change.

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