by Chan Yee-Kwong. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1987. / Bibliography: leaf 114.

All industries occasionally experience technological shocks or 'discontinuities.' These discontinuities may be competence-enhancing or competence-destroying. Competence-destroying discontinuities threaten to render existing capabilities obsolete and lead to 'eras of ferment' in which the new technology competes with the old one. At the same time, several designs within the new technology struggle for dominance. Managers faced with such a situation need to make several important decisions, perhaps the most important of which involve the selection of technologies to adopt or develop. Existing competencies and market positions provide strong constraints on the objective of meeting evolving customer expectations. The decisions are expensive and fraught with risks. Naturally, a better understanding of how technologies tend to evolve and why particular designs become dominant, while others, equally plausible ones, do not, would help managers make more informed decisions and avoid costly mistakes or even the prospect of lock-out. / This primary aim of this dissertation was the development of a better theoretical understanding of this complex process. Relying primarily on archival data, narratives were constructed around four cases of radical technology shifts in the photographic industry. When woven with existing theoretical insights, these narratives yielded a new perspective on technology dominance. It proposes that contrary to the popular perception that customers eventually adopt technologies that meet their needs 'better,' the success or failure of a new technology is dependent on the extent to which its proponent can build it into the emerging institutional context. This involves opening the design up to embody the interests of key stakeholders as well as structuring the field. At the same time associations and linkages are created between the technology and existing structures. "Enrolling" institutions in this manner stabilizes the nascent technology, reducing its disruptiveness and creating positive externalities around it. How long the design stays dominant depends upon its position in the industry architecture (Christensen, 1997). If it is positioned as an obligatory passage point (Latour, 1987), it is likely to stay dominant for much longer than if it is simply the foremost technological solution to the central problem.

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Within the accepted historiography of photography, the importance of George Eastman and the Eastman Kodak Company (EKC) has become unassailable. They have been placed as the key, and often sole, agent in “revolutionizing” the amateur photography market in the late nineteenth century. While the photographic landscape and market of 1885-1914 was indeed radically altered, the historiographical dominance of what can be identified as the “Kodak story” has obscured the means through which EKC’s successful re-structuring of the existing manufacturing and distribution networks of photographic materials occurred. I argue that the changes effected by Eastman and the EKC began not with imaging desires, but with their acknowledgment, and profound understanding of the existing and competing interests within the photographic industry. This thesis focuses on the EKC’s re-structuring of the extant and evolving communities involved in the manufacturing and distribution of photographic materials in Canada between 1885-1910. Focusing particularly on the period immediately surrounding the establishment of the Canadian Kodak Co. Limited in 1899, I demonstrate the re-structuring processes at work, including: market and financial diversification; governmental lobbying; purchase and mergers; and other business and marketing-based strategies. I frame my theoretical positions and analysis of network re-structuring through the experiences of Ottawa professional photographer and photographic business owner William James Topley (active 1868-1907), and CKCoLtd manager John Garrison Palmer (active 1886-1921). Topley and Garrison’s professional experiences and interactions with expanded communities of photographic consumers and industry participants provide an opportunity for specific and detailed findings which challenge understandings of the evolution of the practice of photography during this transitional period. In doing so, I provide evidence of the primary role network re-structuring played in the EKC’s ability to shape the wider international photographic industry to their advantage in the early twentieth century.