Stimulating Government Technology Commercialization: A Marketing Perspective for Technology Transfer

ABSTRACT

Federal legislation in the United States mandates that technology developed by federal government agencies must demonstrate socioeconomic benefits to justify the expenditure of funds as part of their fiduciary capacity. The mandate is operationalized by requiring federally funded agencies to seek socioeconomic benefits for the nation by developing programs designed to transfer government sponsored or developed technologies to the private sector. This mandate has led to substantial increase in the amount of technology transfer efforts by agencies, with limited results. Challenges include both the recruitment of firms to participation in technology transfer programs and weak efforts by recruited firms to fully commercialize products. This article posits that a marketing exchange approach to technology transfer will facilitate successful technology transfer and commercialization. A conceptual framework is presented from which to view government technology transfer efforts.     

Response to Dr. Capaldi

SUMMARY

This a response to Professor Nicholas Capaldi's reflections on Professor William E. Kilbourne's discussion of dominant social paradigms and government technology transfer programs in this volume. Dr. Kilbourne notes his agreement with Dr. Capaldi on most points, and reiterates his position, in his view consistent with Dr. Capaldi, that difficulties of cross-cultural technology transfers cannot be overcome by “persuasion,” and that cultural adaptation must involve a gradual process of successive technology transfers and the development of institutions that further develop technologies with consideration of the needs of users.     

Incorporating the Dominant Social Paradigm into Government Technology Transfer Programs

SUMMARY

This paper examines problems implicit in transferring technology from developed countries to lesser developed countries. This is done from the perspective of the dominant social paradigm, and argues that the limited success of governmental transfer programs can be attributed to paradigm conflicts between the developer of technology and the recipient. The conclusion suggests that the effectiveness of government technology transfer programs can be improved if a dual approach is adopted. For transfers to lesser developed countries, the initial step should be to understand the differences in paradigms, and this should be followed by the development of appropriate technologies that enhance the development potential of the recipient in terms of the recipients' values and worldviews.     

The Impact of Foreign Technology and Embodied R&D on Productivity in Internationally Oriented and High-Technology Industries in Egypt, 2006–2009

This paper investigates the domestic productivity and spillover effects of foreign technology and embodied R&D on Egyptian manufacturing industries, 2006 to 2009. It also analyses the heterogeneous sectoral effects of technology transfer by focusing specifically on the productivity effects on highly internationalized and technology-intensive industries. These are expected to have greater absorptive capacity with respect to foreign technology and therefore larger productivity effects because of their greater exposure to foreign competition and greater technological capacity respectively. This study is the first to analyse the efficiency effects of foreign technology by classifying industries in this manner. It finds that foreign technology and embodied R&D have positive and significant industry-specific effects on domestic productivity and TFP in technology-intensive industries but that these are weaker in internationally oriented industries. The study suggests that only technological-intensive industries in Egypt have sufficient absorptive capacity to assimilate foreign technology effectively. The paper’s findings highlight the key role of foreign technology in domestic productivity growth, subject to the absorptive capacity of the domestic labour force, and the need for improved policies to promote the domestic benefits of technology transfer through the accumulation of local technological competences.

     

Consumption and macroeconomic policies: Theory and evidence from developing countries

Abstract

This paper examines determinants of private consumption in a sample of developing countries. The empirical model includes income, a proxy for the cost of consumption, and the exchange rate. Anticipated movements in these determinants are likely to trigger adjustment in planned consumption, while unanticipated changes determine random transitory adjustment in consumption. Fluctuations in private consumption are mostly random with respect to unanticipated changes in income and, to a lesser extent, the exchange rate. Consumption increases during cyclical expansion of income and decreases in the face of an unanticipated increase in the cost of consumption. Exchange rate fluctuations have mixed results on private consumption. As for the effects of domestic policies, fiscal policy has a limited, and sometimes negative, effect on private consumption. Monetary growth, in contrast, stimulates an increase in private consumption. This evidence supports recent calls to decrease the size of government and enhance the role of monetary policy in stimulating private activity in developing countries.     

An Empirical Investigation of Marketing Programme and Process Elements in the Home-Host Scenario

SUMMARY

The two major strategies often available to international marketers are standardisation and adaptation when deciding to operate in a foreign host market. Both strategies have pros and cons. Drawing on the findings of previous theoretical and empirical studies, this study proposes a “marketing programme/process and performance” framework. The study employed a linear multiple regression (OLS) analysis method to examine the proposed framework, based on the experience of 233 Australian and New Zealand (home markets) firms operating in the Greater China region (host markets). Factors identified as significantly associated with adaptation of programme/process include “employee” and “employer” immigrant effects, government regulations, economic development, competitive environment and product life cycle. Factors identified as influencing firm performance include product adaptation, product type and market entry mode.     

Russian MNEs Under Sanctions: Challenges for Upgrading in GVCs (Cases of Energy and IT Industries)

Abstract

The article examines upgrading strategies of Russian multinational enterprises (MNEs) under sanctions. We focus on MNEs from energy and information technology industries. Four types of global value chain (GVC) upgrading strategies (process, product, functional, and chain upgrading) are discussed. The paper is based on the case study research. The research questions address the influence of sanctions on Russian MNEs’ upgrading strategies in GVCs and the role of import substitution policies for companies’ upgrading. Research findings show that at microlevel, sanctions do not prevent implementation of upgrading strategies. Import substitution policies provide additional support for MNEs upgrading in GVCs.     

Reflections on Ethical Concerns in Technology Transfer and Macromarketing

SUMMARY

The following theses are defended. Technology transfer is (a) a good thing; (b) reflects the universalizing and globalizing impulse of western technologically advanced culture; (c) is based on the fundamental truth of human freedom; (d) requires not only the transfer of technology but of institutions and norms such as the technological project itself, free market economies, limited government, the rule of law, individual rights, religious toleration and personal autonomy; (e) may require the radical transformation of cultures receiving the technology; (f) is impeded largely by the difficulties of the receiving culture to adjust to the full spectrum of change; (g) challenges those in macromarketing to understand the processes of cultural transformation; (h) and, finally, faces a grave threat from those who are in an adversarial relationship to the “grand narrative of western technologically advanced culture.”     

Advertising Regulations in Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

This paper examines the status and outlook of advertising regulations in sub-Saharan Africa. It begins with a synoptic overview of the region's advertising industry, which is used as a backdrop. Advertising regulations pertaining to tobacco, alcohol, pharmaceuticals, children, and politics are examined, and seven regulatory forces (consumer protection; growth of service industry; fairness and vulnerable groups; new media technologies; civil rights and privacy; religion, morality, and taste; and nationalism) likely to stimulate advertising regulations in the region are also presented. The paper concludes with implications and directions for future research.     

Technology policies and the growth of regions: Evidence from four countries

Since the 1980s, all industrialized countries have established technology policies aimed at increasing economic growth through the development of scientific and technical resources. Most technology policy initiates are at the national level and are predominantly concerned with levels of funding. This is a problem because high-tech industrial development is observed to be regional in nature and national technology policies do not explicitly pursue regional goals. This paper tests two hypotheses. First, that the different explicit and implicit technology policies have had a significant, although unintended, impact on the development of a special type of space, the high-tech regions. Next, that the spatial effects of government technology policy promote high-tech regions over other regions, although this influence is primarily of an implicit or unintended nature.     

New Technology Adoption,Business Strategy and Government Involvement: The Case of Mobile Commerce

SUMMARY

This research focuses on understanding how business organizations are likely to adopt mobile commerce (m-commerce) technology. Mobile commerce adoption represents a complex process that draws in variables external to the firm such as the environment in which the business operates and the government involvement, as well as variables internal to the company such as its business strategy and its organizational culture. A model is formulated and several research propositions are offered. They will help understand the mobile commerce applications adoption process. Implications of this model and further research avenues are discussed.     

Accounting Career Cycles

Abstract

This paper examines the career cycle of accountants in public firms in order to develop methods to extend intra-organizational careers and thus improve customer service. A model of the public accountant's career cycle is developed to facilitate this purpose and expose the effects internal CPA firm policies have on small business clients. Accounting firms are encouraged to revise existing career development patterns. Small businesses should consider implications of potential consultant career cycle policies on perceptions of engagement quality and costs.     

Cross-Country Evidence on the Effectiveness of Foreign Investment Policies

This study empirically evaluates the effectiveness of government policies toward foreign enterprises and foreign direct investment activity. Foreign investment policies are difficult to quantify, but we overcome this difficulty by employing an index that reflects a country's general regulatory environment and treatment of foreign businesses. The evidence on the effectiveness of foreign investment policy measures is captured by a panel regression model, which pools together a cross-section of 153 countries over the period 1995–2001. The statistically significant explanatory power of the policy index is robust to the presence of a host of conditioning variables, some of which serve as fundamental foreign investment determinants that lie largely outside the direct control of national policy.     

The state,small shops and hypermarkets: A public policy for retail,France, 1945–1973

Abstract

This article examines contemporary French retail history, studying both transformations in retail structures and evolutions in government retail policies from 1945 to 1973. It notably questions the existence of a defined public policy for the retail sector. Based on extensive archival research, it is designed to offer an overview of the topic in order to familiarise international scholars with French retail history, while stimulating discussion and providing case material to enable comparisons with other national cases.     

我国涉外税收政策入世后的调整

加入WTO以后,我国的政策、法律法规有很多地方需要加以调整和修改,在涉外税收政策方面也应该与时俱进,适应经济发展的需要。文章分析了我国现行涉外税收政策存在的问题,提出了调整涉外税收政策的一些看法和建议。     

Simulating Economic Development in Transformation Economies

Abstract

The purpose of the game described in this paper is to help students understand the impact of various strategies of government intervention on the dynamic free-market processes stimulating economic development. The game simulates three developing economies. Within the economies, each of the students represents an independent economic entity, able to contribute labor, consume goods, and acquire wealth. The game is played in periods, with each one representing a cycle of production and consumption. In one economy, students are free to act independently, or to collaborate, to invest or save money, to innovate or produce conventional products. In the other two, their activities are constrained by “government” regulations, simulating contrasting strategies of import substitution and export promotion. In the end, students are evaluated according to the wealth they create. The three simulated economies provide experiential evidence as a basis for discussing the relative merits of unfettered free enterprise, import substitution, and export promotion as contrasting strategies of economic development.     

Policy transfer and policy inertia: privatization in Taiwan

In recent years, privatization seems to have been more talked about than carried out in a number of countries. This study looks at the progress of privatization in Taiwan in the light of the literature on policy transfer. Although the government of Taiwan announced a privatization programme in the late 1980s, by the end of 1998 sales of state-owned enterprises had occurred much more slowly than planned. The first part of the article reviews the literature on policy transfer. Policy transfer has been described as the process by which policies transfer from one country to another due to mimetic, normative or coercive effects. Taiwan's privatization programme is then reviewed and the main barriers to change are identified. The study concludes by considering the implications of Taiwan's record on privatization for our understanding of policy transfer in an international context.     

Innovation and the management of marketing in high technology small firms

This paper initially attempts conceptually to integrate marketing into the total innovation process within high technology small firms. It is argued that an understanding of marketing problems can only be achieved when viewed in terms of other preceding stages in the innovation cycle, of which marketing is a key final act. The subsequent presentation of evidence from two recent research studies indicates that marketing has been neglected in a surprising number of the high technology small firms studied, in which there was a considerable reliance on unsolicited orders as a reactive form of selling. It is argued that this lack of marketing vigour is partly caused by a shortage of human and financial resources which frequently stem from expensive earlier stages in the innovation cycle (e.g. R&D). It is concluded that vigorous marketing would increase output and growth in several of the currently reactive instances. Thus, the paper concludes with suggestions for a more pro‐active policy on the part of government agencies towards the promotion of sales growth in these currently inactive high technology small enterprises.     

Organizational Learning in China: The Role of Returners

ABSTRACT

The Chinese authorities have launched a range of policies and incentives at the national and regional level to attract citizens who have studied and worked abroad to return in order to contribute to upgrading the competitiveness of the Chinese economy, particularly in light of China's entrance to the World Trade Organization. In other words, the returners are expected to stimulate organizational learning in existing organizations and in new companies. This article provides an overview of what has been done to date and points out that simply increasing the number of returners is not enough to achieve organizational learning. Drawing on research findings about the barriers to organizational learning from returned expatriate managers in international companies, the article develops recommendations for government policies, corporate strategies, and Chinese returners.     

我国现行外资政策法规的"适世"思考

入世后，我国现行外资政策法规与WTO规则仍存在一些不相容的地方。为了适应入世需要，必须根除错误观念，优化投资环境，转变政府职能，认真研究WTO规则及其例外，为内外资企业竞争构造统一平台。