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gender balance to the great pleasure of the minority males. Typists were extremely powerful in every institution. One had to think a lot before you submitted your handwriting for final typing. While a typist would tolerate a few mistakes in the first version (it was possible to correct them with a special ink). Yet this forced us to think carefully and choose the most appropriate words and formulation for our draft.
However, the internet lets us keep things open as long as we need. It helps people to become even bigger procrastinators, beyond what is natural. Making choices is an important part of creativity. Ultimately, by closing one thought, sentence, page, or book, we are creating something new. In this way computers have not just helped us to do what we do anyway in an easier and simpler way. Computer has changed the way people think and how people create.
One of the main key attributes of computer is that everything typed is stored digitally, as opposed to an analog system, such as that on typewriters, where everything written is a mechanical transfer to paper. Typewriters waste paper and result in the user having to store a physical result. Digital documents can be extremely long and, because they are visual, storage space is virtually unlimited. This also makes computers more environmentally friendly, as they do not waste paper.
3.5.5. The Decline of Newspaper
The decline of newspapers is real. Since 1970 the number of dailies in America has declined by 20 percent. The Huffington posts are leading to Creative destruction of the traditional newspaper. The Christian Science monitor announces in January 2009 that it would no longer continue to publish a daily paper edition, but would be available on line daily and provides weekly print edition. At a national level in USA, employment in the newspaper business fell from 445,700 in 1990 to 2005, 100 in 2013.
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cope with the new improved technologies and skills of doing businesses. However, when the economy continues to experience new ideas, innovations and creativity, the situation, following a continually innovating economy, could generate opportunities for those who are attuned to participation in more creative and productive enterprises
In some countries of the world, such as India, China, Japan etc. entrepreneurship has become a major driver of economic growth. In India, the society has witnessed a rapid economic growth due to government interest in entrepreneurship which has led so many people to develop their talents. Here are some criticisms of Creative destruction.
3.6.1. Structural Unemployment; Free market economics makes a case for allowing any unprofitable firm to go out of business whatever the consequences. However, some argue that the process of Creative destruction can lead to long-term damage and needs to be more carefully managed. When some industries close down, there is no guarantee that the unemployed workers will be sufficiently skilled to shift employment prospects at the very least. There may be a need for government intervention to give better skills to the long-term unemployed. The firm industry may provide external benefits which impact on social efficiency. For example, in 1960s, the Beeching report advocated closure of many UK railways because the care was more efficient. It was a classic example of Creative destruction- close railways and invest in roads. However, forty years latter many rail closures are regretted because railways can help reduce road congestion, pollution, plus nobody predicted the increase in rail demand of the past twenty years.
3.6.2. Regional Unemployment
In a shifting economy, regional immobilities can make the "destruction phrase" last for a long time. A large- scale closure and the loss of many jobs can be difficult for an area to deal with.
New Jobs may be created in the economy, but not in the area of high unemployment. This can lead to a prolong period of low growth and high regional unemployment.
3.6.3. Winners and Losers
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Technological innovation is arguably the main driver of economic growth in the long run.
New innovation is been rejected not because of ignorance but because it creates winners as well as losers in political arena and in market place. Technological progress can also create losses through creative destruction as new technology, renders old technology obsolete. In the process of Creative destruction, some will benefit a lot, but others may lose out, example, long-term unemployed struggling to shift occupation. Kodak was an Iconic American company synonymous with photography. But long entrenched in film manufacture, it did not see the shift to digital photography, one that required no film. Worse, this shift was provoked by Harlett- Packard, an unlikely competitor from an entirely different industry. Soon followed by Apple and others Kodak was ambushed by the digital revolution. Saddled with a legacy infrastructure that was no longer usable, it was forced to shutter factories, sell business units and bury its very core in a bid to merely re-adapt. The changing market dynamics, one of digital convergence, ignited by a series of disruptive innovations, left Kodak virtually irrelevant as a company.
3.6.4. High rate of Obsolescence
If a better, faster or cheaper service arises, it will likely eventually overtake the incumbent, and extending those factors to the extreme, like Google search- so cheap and faster. The introduction of new technology renders the old ones obsolete. This means that capital goods become obsolete while still durable simply because a new more productive and efficient unit has been produced. Okogbuo in his article "Conceptual and Theoretical Issues Related to Technology” avers that obsolescence impacts negatively on the development of African States.34 It make the developing countries consumers countries and dumping ground of capital goods. Thus in his words:
Rapid technologically induced change has negative implication for the social continuity of the generation. It endangers social continuity making it impossible for a generation to recognize itself or to have self- identity.49
3.6.5. Closure of Firms
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Closure can lead to inefficiency itself. If a firm with experience and investment in human and labour capital closes down, then it can take a long time for these resources to be efficiently redistributed. For example, the theory of Hysteresis, suggests that short-term unemployment can lead to a higher natural rate.
Unprofitability doesn't mean the firm always should close down. Market forces may lead to many firms closing down because of lack of profitability. However, this closure may not be an efficient outcome. A firm may become unprofitable from short-term factors, such as High tariffs hitting exports short-term recession hits output. Short-term labour market problems, such as strikes in these cases, the lack of profitability is not a sign that the firm is terminally inefficient. In these cases, there may be a strong case for temporary government help to enable the firm to come through the short-term difficulties. It may also be possible for a firm to restructure and diversify; this can be less damaging than whole sale closure.
Venerable institutions are the ones that are the most vulnerable to destruction. There are many numbers of causes for discontinuity. Basically change happens. Change is not new, but the rate of change has been accelerating in the past ninety years or so. Creative destruction is inherent to capitalism. Discontinuities create under and over performance. Companies need to keep up with change in the market in order to outperform it. New companies perform better, so do new industries. Looking at the process whereby old companies are replaced by new ones has increased. Entrants to an industry have an advantage over the established firms: they perform better, and they bring innovation.
The collapse of pan African paper mills in Kenya has turned the once-booming town into a near ghost town which remains a case study on the impact of obsolete technology and high fuel costs. At its height, the company whose majority share holder was Birla Group of India- employed 1,300 permanent employees and 3000 casual workers. The factory's closure led to the shutting of Panpaper High school, Panpaper primary school, a community dispensary, Pan paper Guest house and a cultural centre. The plant was first closed in 2009 after the Kenya power company disconnected electricity over a sh100 million bill and with other creditors demanding in excess of sh7 billion. Since then, attempts to restart the factory, which opened in 1974, have failed even with the injection of cash by the central government. When the
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factory started, it saw the emergence of a town following the influx of more than 1500 workers. But the increase in power charges and competition from other markets, local publishers started complaining of the quality of webuye paper and the price which was above world levels. Pan paper was an energy-intensive plant and could not compete with government subsidized mills in other countries and a general decline in wood-based products.
Although the government of Kenya paid Sh1.2 billion in 2013 in a bid to re open the factory, the rise of computers and the internet has reduced the need for paper as major customers turn to new technology including digital media. More so, the National Pencil company limited which produced Diamond brand of pencils, Crayons, and Coloured pencils from Nyahunuru;
East African Records, the only record pressing company in Kenya by 1990s and Juja's East Africa Bag and Cordage- a victim of cheap exports. At their prime, these companies boomed- now they are facing away or remain as memories.
The criticism of creative destruction, as a means of destructive tendency, is only in the short run. When there is crisis as a result of result of retrenchment of people from their work places but such a situation also has countervailing effect which triggers off determination and commitment on the part of people who have mindset in entrepreneurship, leading to their success in business outlets. Due to high level unemployment in Africa, a lot of school leavers have exploited many areas of interest in business, in such a way that many are regretting.