The “sailing-ship effect” as a technological principle
研究了新旧技术竞争中的“帆船效应”，即旧技术因新技术的出现而得到改进，将其从一个模糊概念转化为结构化的分析工具，对理解技术演进和创新战略有参考价值。
Abstract The “sailing-ship effect” is the process whereby improvements to an incumbent technology (e.g. sail) are intentionally sought as a new competing technology (steam) emerges. Despite the fact that the effect has been referred to by quite a few scholars in different technological battles, the effect itself seems to have been taken for granted rather than organically defined and investigated. In this paper, within the context of evolutionary “appreciative theorizing” à la Nelson and Winter, through in-depth study of technological battles between old and new technologies, we transform what was an unfinished concept into a structured, fully-fledged, tool of analysis.