The nature of 'failure' in a technological initiative: the case of the europrocessor

This paper looks at the recat histoty of a short-lived inter-organizational European initiative in the field on microprocessors.The initiative is treated as an emerging socio-technical constituency and the concepts of alignment and “diamond of alignment” are used to explain the reasons behind its failure. It shows that the merging Europrocessor constituency advanced the alignment process in certazn directions but failed to do so in the critical dimension of “'competitive technologies”. The negotiating parties locked themselves into an antagonistic competitive situation and, subsequently, failed to extricate thenuelves in time to save the emerging constituency.A brief overview of microprocessor technology, the main factors detemzining market adoption and the position of the European industty is included.