Project management: Prof. Dr. Oliver Nachtwey
Project team: Jacqueline Kalbermatter, Johannes Truffer
Project duration: 1/10/2018–31/3/2020
Funded by: Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)
SNSF ID: 10DL12_183066

The emergence of new corporate cultures in Silicon Valley has influenced the transformation of the economy on the global level. This process has been accompanied by various new normative orientations, which in turn have had an effect on the practices of economic actors. The present research project is dedicated to an analysis of both the “spirit of digital capitalism” embodied in the American big-tech companies and of the digital economy in Switzerland.

The goal of this project is to systematically examine the “spirit of digital capitalism,” as well as the normative practical orientations and social practices that are associated with it. Within the context of digital transformation, American companies based in Silicon Valley serve as role models for digitalization strategies around the world. The visions and ideas of the Silicon Valley pioneers continue to resonate strongly. As normative guidelines for action, they permeate social practices and the notion of the “right” way to do business in the context of digitalization. In order to arrive at an understanding of these ideas and visions, as well as their impact, the project examines both their contours and how they have been implemented in the Swiss economy. In this way it will be possible to draw conclusions about future institutional and economic/cultural paths of digitalization, among other things, aspects that are particularly relevant for addressing digitalization in the Swiss economy. In order to do so, it is necessary to identify collective points of reference that serve as a guide to action and to analyze problems that arise from the mediation between higher-level ideas about digital technologization and their practical implementation.

In order to obtain an exhaustive picture of these visions and ideas as they are articulated in the programmatic texts of the Silicon Valley pioneers, as well as in later management literature, the texts will be analyzed on the level of both form and content using linguistic approaches. This first step involves typologizing the aggregated beliefs that underpin and encourage digital change. The second step is then to examine the implementation of this vision in the concrete social practices of Swiss businesses. The goal is to obtain systematic insights into the everyday practices and problems faced by Swiss economic actors in the context of digitalization (transnational Internet companies, tech startups, Bitcoin companies).

Keywords

Digitalization, Silicon Valley, Spirit of Capitalism, Swiss Economy, Economic Sociology