The Victory of VHS against Betamax

This paper wishes to contribute to the ongoing debate on standardization processes by addressing on the economic and social aspects that shape the creation and diffusion of standards. The aim of the paper is to deal with a clear gap in the literature, as evolution of standards over time has not been fully explored. Indeed, mainstream literature tends to treat creation and diffusion as two distinguished phases. The research relies on an in-depth document analysis of the VHS vs. BETAMAX contest. By drawing upon the Actor-Network Theory, the paper shows that the evolution of a standard is a complex process where creation and diffusion are co-evolving dimensions, which cannot be easily distinguished; second, it shows that the coupling of both economic and social aspects permits a clear understanding of the factors and events that affect the evolution of a standard and the dominance of one standard among competing ones. DOI: 10.4018/jantti.2013010103 International Journal of Actor-Network Theory and Technological Innovation, 5(1), 40-54, January-March 2013 41 Copyright © 2013, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. fact, such separation does not allow to fully comprehending the dynamic character of standard building and use. This paper aims at overcoming such limitations (1) by looking at standardization as a complex process in which creation and diffusion phases jointly evolve and (2) by taking into account both economic and social aspects. The theoretical and methodological framework upon which we draw our analysis is the ActorNetwork Theory (thereafter simply ANT). We claim that the ANT has developed new concepts and ideas that might help the understanding of the evolution of standardization processes. Our analysis is based on a well-known standardization story: the VHS vs. BETAMAX competition. The analysis highlights that the description of the features of the two competing technologies, the depiction of the kind of users and the clarification of the overall purpose of the two products evolve as the group of the participating actors evolves itself. From a more theoretical point of view, the analysis shows that the coupling of both the economic and social aspects allows shedding new light on the factors and events that shape the standardization process, the black-boxing of the technologies and the success of one of them (such as for instance VHS and BETAMAX). Furthermore, the study helps clarifying how and to what extent the efforts in building a complex socio-legal-technical network around a prospective standard might become successful. The paper is organized as follows. First we provide a brief overview of the standardization literature. Then, we introduce the ActorNetwork Theory and offer a description of its value in analyzing standardization processes. Afterwards we further describe the methodology adopted. Then we review the VHS vs. BETAMAX story, followed by a section that analyzes the main findings of the case study. The last parts of the article discuss and conclude this work. DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO STANDARDIZATION Different definitions of the notion of standard might be found in the literature; from a general point of view, a standard might be defined as a stable set of rules which specify what the adopters of the standard are requested to do (David & Greenstein, 1990; Link, 1983). Current literature divides the standardization process in two main phases: the creation phase and the diffusion phase (Dosi, 2000). The creation phase is the one where alternative sets of rules or technologies are created: the standard might be considered as a work in progress. The diffusion phase is the one where the standard is disseminated and possibly adopted by users. This analytical distinction allows highlighting that standardization is a voluntary process aimed at defining a set of rules which are then adopted by the interested actors. The topic of standardization crosses both the economic and social research field; the following two sections briefly summarize this extensive body of literature. The Economic Approach to Standardization Pioneering studies on the standardization process might be found in the economic research field. Among others, the most famous are certainly those made by David and Arthur on the de facto standardization (David, 1985; David, 1987; Arthur, 1988; Arthur, 1989). This latter identifies a context in which a technology becomes a standard when it gains a significant market share and has been widely adopted (David & Greenstein, 1990). A major example in this sense is the Microsoft Windows operating system which covers more than the 80% of the market. The economic research field has sought to identify those elements thanks to which the market is in danger of selecting an inefficient standard, or of remaining “locked-in” in an old 13 more pages are available in the full version of this document, which may be purchased using the "Add to Cart" button on the product's webpage: www.igi-global.com/article/neither-heroes-norchaos/76669?camid=4v1 This title is available in InfoSci-Journals, InfoSci-Journal Disciplines Communications and Social Science. Recommend this product to your librarian: www.igi-global.com/e-resources/libraryrecommendation/?id=2