The business of time: A global history of the watch industry

by Pierre-Yves Donzé

Overview

World watch production today is concentrated in three countries: Switzerland, Japan and China. Former centres such as Great Britain, France, the United States and Russia saw the industrial manufacture of watches disappear from their territory during the twentieth century. How did this situation come about? The business of time aims to answer this question by presenting the first comprehensive history of the sector. It traces the evolution and transformation of the global watch industry from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day, highlighting the conditions that enabled watch production to expand across the globe and revealing how multinational companies gradually emerged to dominate the industry.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781526162571
Publisher:	Manchester University Press
Publication date:	07/05/2022
Series:	Studies in Design and Material Culture
Pages:	216
Product dimensions:	6.69(w) x 9.45(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Pierre-Yves Donzé is Professor of Business History at Osaka University

Table of Contents

Introduction
1 The situation in the mid-nineteenth century
2 Responding to the American challenge, 1870–90
3 A first phase of technological and industrial diffusion, 1890–1914
4 The transformation of the watch industry, 1914–45
5 A first wave of foreign direct investment, 1945–70
6 The impact of electronics, 1970–85
7 Reorganisation of global value chains since 1985
8 Epilogue: the world watch industry in 2017
Conclusion
Index

Editorial Reviews

'An excellent concise history of the global watch industry... The book is full of interesting stories about technological innovation and progress and how they are communicated globally.'
Jan-Otmar Hesse, Business History

'Offers a unique insight into how the industry evolved, looking at the transition of dominance between countries.'
The Naked Watchmaker

'A beautifully constructed, tightly focused, single-industry case study that has important implications for various questions in business history.'
WatchCrunch

From the Publisher