8 - Entrepreneurship and Governance in the Scotch Whisky Knowledge Commons

Summary

The Scotch whisky industry is centuries-old and steeped in tradition. Indeed, “it has long been used as a symbol of Scottishness” (Baxter, 1985, p. 77). Recently, distillers in other countries have adopted the Scotch whisky process and have successfully imitated single malt Scotch whisky. This chapter will provide a case study of entrepreneurial history in the Scotch whisky market using the framework of Governing Knowledge Commons focusing specifically on the attempts of the entrepreneurs to legitimize their entry into the product category of Scotch. The category of Scotch, especially single-malt Scotch was developed and given credence by a small group of Scottish distillers at considerable cost. These distillers, thus, invested in an exclusionary knowledge commons between the producers and the consumers who value the spirit. On the one hand, Scottish producers understandably want to protect this investment and wish to maintain the quality of this shared resource. On the other hand, the exclusionary nature of this commons serves to restrict access to the shared resource and has limited the amount of innovation allowed. This trade-off between maintenance of and access to the shared resource will be the focus of this chapter.