The Tortoise and the Hare: Industry Clockspeed and Resilience of Production and Knowledge Networks in Montréal’s Aerospace Industry

Abstract

Abstract A central challenge in current cluster policy discussions is how to build innovative clusters that are resilient to external shocks. We examine the Montréal aerospace industry to explore cluster resilience. The case is interesting since it recently experienced two industrial shocks: Boeing 737 MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019 and Bombardier’s sell-off of its flagship CSeries in 2020. Surprisingly, in the wake of the two radical disruptions, the cluster fared quite well in terms of employment and export performance. Using the method of abductive reasoning to find a-matter-of-course explanation of the surprising case, we observe that a low speed of aircraft development and production – a low industry clockspeed – stabilizes local production and knowledge networks through five mechanisms: long-term contracting, R&D cost sharing, production planning, social networking, and technology solidifying. Inspired from the case, we theoretically explore how fast (e. g., fashion and cellphones or the hare) and low (e. g., shipbuilding and aerospace or the tortoise) industry clockspeeds lead to different configurations of firm relations and are thus associated with different types of economic resilience.