Title: The food industry: still a craft industry?

Authors: Pascal Bye

Addresses: INRA - Economic et Sociologic Rurales, 2 Place P. Viala, 34060 Montpellier Cedex 2, France

Abstract: The faculty of the food industry to adapt to different technical and economic contexts rests less on an aptitude for radically reviewing existing processes, products or knowledge than on a capacity for maintaining them so as to combine them. In this way, it is able to meet the challenge of new social functions or marketing strategies. This rational control of its craft traditions is particularly marked in the European food industry. It manifests itself less by ruptures than by the affirmation of certain continuity that profoundly markets industrial strategies and R&D policies.

Keywords: food industry; technical change; R&D policies; routine; strategies.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTM.1998.002685

International Journal of Technology Management, 1998 Vol.16 No.7, pp.655-678

Published online: 04 Jul 2003 *

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