A model of “coupled” technology transfer : A logistic curve approach

This article presents a mathematical model relating to the technology transfer problem. The origin of the problem stems from the existing trade-offs between the strategies of “technological progressiveness” and “static efficiency” employed by firms or countries defined as “leaders” and “followers,” respectively. The formulation of the model is based on the assumption that the technological development of a firm or a country follows a logistic growth curve when related to a specific technology. During the process of a “coupled” technology transfer, the development of the follower changes and its behavior is described by a first order nonhomogenous deferential equation. Different scenarios of the “coupled” technology transfer between the leader and the follower are being discussed.     

Characteristics of technology transfer in business ventures: the case of Daejeon, Korea

This article explores the characteristics of venture business and entrepreneurs in Korea to (1) identify technology transfer activities, (2) analyze the differences between technology transfer in linear and nonlinear venture businesses, and (3) guide more effective venture business policy and strategy. This empirical assessment reveals that entrepreneurs have insightful evaluations about their resources and capacities as well as expectations with regard to functions and features of science parks and incubators. Respondents from “linear model”-based start-ups tend to be older and have higher education, employ more basic research and development (R&D) and have more R&D-oriented careers, and have more varied work experience than “nonlinear”-based start-ups. The functions and features of science parks and incubators were generally not considered a critical influence on start-ups nor on the growth of venture businesses. Accordingly, alternative venture-nurturing strategies are discussed as being key to accelerate venture businesses growth.     

Coping with Technology Divergence Policies and Strategies for India’s Industrial Development

Recent studies on innovation have demonstrated the relationship between technology and growth. However, as most of them are centered on the experience of the highly industrialized nations, a different approach to technology policy must be taken. As late industrializers, developing countries lag in adopting foreign technologies. Institutional factors and economic policy also influence the diffusion process. With decentralized decision making, the coexistence of diverse technologies in a given industrial branch is inevitable. Consequently, social costs tend to be high because of duplication of efforts, reduced learning opportunities, and adoption of inefficient technologies. This article examines the coexistence of diverse technologies leading to technology fragmentation in India’s steel industry. Recent innovative behavior in the Japanese and Korean steel industry indicates that the effects of fragmentation can be contained through a policy of “system integration.” This is an institutional process by which industry-specific applications of scientific knowledge are fused with basic research itself. This demands a forward-looking policy that rejuvenates older industries, such as steel, in socially acceptable ways and organically creates new knowledge for national development and social welfare.     

The research strategy in management of technological innovation

The increasing importance of technology in the application world has imposed high demand on the research community for insightful and useful principles about “management of technological innovation” (MTI). This paper examines the academic legacy in terms of conceptual categories, causal relationships and taxonomy of relevant systems, and asserts from a system perspective that MTI as an applied science is still in its infancy.Based on methodological argument, this paper warns of the danger of hasty compromise of strategically important topics to “popular” definition of “researchability,” and suggests several research guidelines and approaches for this young interdisciplinary discipline:

1. (1)To explore new frontiers, use “proximate variables,” consider contextual factors and causation in broad terms, conceptualize “independently,” and pay more attention to case study method.

2. (2)To understand driving forces, be aware of practice, and focus on internal dynamics.

3. (3)To transcend complexity, adopt a hierarchical structure perspective and state-and-flow concept, and condense findings into configurations.

Finally, this paper urges the formation of an overall research strategy to accelerate the accumulation of MTI grounded knowledge.     

Technological generalizations and leitbilder—the anticipation of technological opportunities

Recent national technology foresight studies as well as the Millennium Project of the American Council for the United Nations University are very much based on “nodes of discussion.” These short statements are called, e.g., topics, issues, or developments. This article provides a framework for the classification and analysis of nodes related to future technological development. Key concepts of the article are “technological generalization” and “leitbild.” The topics in the technology foresight Delphi studies can be seen as different kinds of generalizations from already realized technological developments. Leitbild is a German word. Its most general meaning is a guiding image. Like a common vision, a leitbild creates a shared overall goal, offers orientation toward one long-term overall goal, and provides a basis for different professions and disciplines to work in the same direction. The analysis of leitbilder and emerging technological paradigms might contribute to the construction of topics and issues and to the argumentation processes related to them.     

Venture capital: Structure and incentives

Venture capital is a major source of financing for firms in their early stages of development. Such businesses, especially in the high technology industries, are characterized by a high degree of uncertainty and asymmetry of information. In this paper we analyze the relationship between a venture capital organization (“capitalist”) and the initial owner of an entrepreneurial entity in which it invests (“entrepreneur”). We focus on the agency problems and derive a compensation system. In our model the capitalist provides a combination of equity and debt financing while the owner provides equity financing which serves as a signal affecting the beliefs (“optimism”) of the capitalist. The interesting result is that since the capitalist is assumed to be more risk averse than the entrepreneur, he is made to be more optimistic than the entrepreneur at the optimum.     

How firm capabilities affect who benefits from foreign technology

We explore how firm capabilities affect the diffusion of technology brought with foreign direct investment (FDI). Using a panel dataset on Indonesian manufacturers from 1988 to 1996, we measure how the productivity of differing domestic firms responds to the entry of multinational competitors. We find that firms with investments in research and development and firms with highly educated employees adopt more technology from foreign entrants than others. In contrast, firms that have a small “technology gap,” meaning that they are close to the international best-practice frontier, benefit less than firms with weak prior technical competency. This finding suggests that the marginal return to new knowledge is greater for firms that have more room to “catch up” than it is for already competitive firms.     

Will low technology products disappear?: The hidden innovation processes in low technology industries

Political discussions and analyses have usually been devoted to an understanding of the development of high technology products, although low technology products have dominated the industrial structure of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. The important role of low technology products in these countries raises the question of whether we can observe a technological paradox in the industrial structure of the more advanced nations, the dominant role of this sector in spite of its competitive disadvantages because of high wages. Using the Danish packaging industry as an example, a central thesis in the article is that innovation processes are important in low technology industries. They are also often an integrated part of the marketing and production functions of the firm. The innovation processes in the low technology industries are therefore too complex for traditional R&D analyses to handle. The article points out that—especially in small firms—the “practical man” and his “tacit knowledge” play a very central role in both product and process development, and that low technology, even in the future, will play a central role in the industrial structure of the OECD countries.     

Is man doomed to progress?

This paper is dedicated to the empirical exploration of the welfare effect of expectations and progress per se. Using 10 waves of the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS), a panel household survey rich in subjective variables, the analysis suggests that for a given total stock of inter-temporal consumption, agents are more satisfied with an increasing time profile of consumption: they seem to have a strong “taste for improvement”. This contributes to qualify the “Easterlin paradox” that income growth does not make people happy.     

Control of SO2 emissions from power plants: A case of induced technological innovation in the U.S.

This paper investigates how the details of government actions induce innovation—the overlapping activities of invention, adoption and diffusion, and learning by doing—in “environmental technology,” products and processes that either control pollutant emissions or prevent emissions altogether. It applies multiple quantitative and qualitative measures of innovation to a case subject to several “technology-push” and “demand-pull” instruments: sulfur dioxide control technology for power plants. The study employs analyses of public R&D funding, patents, expert interviews, learning curves, conference proceedings, and experience curves. Results indicate that: regulation and the anticipation of regulation stimulate invention; technology-push instruments appear to be less effective at prompting invention than demand-pull instruments; and regulatory stringency focuses inventive activity along certain technology pathways. Increased diffusion of the technology results in significant and predictable operating cost reductions in existing systems, as well as notable efficiency improvements and capital cost reductions in new systems. Government plays an important role in fostering knowledge transfer via technical conferences, as well as affecting the pattern of collaborative relationships within the technical research community via regulatory changes that affect the market for the technology. Finally, the case provides little evidence for the claim that cap-and-trade instruments induce innovation more effectively than other instruments.     

The impact of liberalization on bureaucratic corruption

Liberalization increases the number of goods available for consumption within a country. Since bureaucrats value variety, this raises the marginal utility of accepting a bribe. This “benefit effect” is counteracted by an increasing “cost effect” from corruption deterrence activities that arise due to greater international pressure to curb corruption. The interaction of these two effects can lead to a non-monotonic relation between liberalization and corruption. Moreover, pre-commitment to deterrence activities is shown to be more effective in controlling corruption. Empirical evidence supports the existence of a non-monotonic relation between economic openness and corruption among developing countries.     

Anticipating the future high-tech competitiveness of nations: Indicators for twenty-eight countries

This article presents some of the major results obtained during the third phase of a continuing research effort to develop and implement national indicators of competitiveness in high technology industries. The first phase, begun in 1987, developed a conceptual model of the processes by which industrializing nations gain access to external technology and technical information, absorb that technology/information effectively, and institutionalize a science-based development and manufacturing capability leading to export-led growth in high technology products. Four “input” or leading indicators of a nation's future capacity (15-year time horizons) to compete in international markets in high technology products were developed, as were three “output” indicators of a nation's current international competitiveness. During this first phase, the seven indicators were applied to data for twenty countries representing a range of regions and extent of industrialization. The second phase used 1990 data on an expanded set of countries to examine in detail the indicators' reliability and validity. The third phase of indicators work (1992–1995): (1) developed seven indicators whose definitions were recommended in our 1991 final report to the Science Indicators Unit of the National Science Foundation, and (2) collected the necessary data (1993) and applied them to generate a set of indicators for 28 countries using these recommended formulations.This article focuses on the input indicators for the 28 countries and compares these 1993 results with those from 1990. We discuss the implications of these results for technology-based development theory and for development policy. A separate, companion article published elsewhere presents the output indicator results.     

A prospective on macrocybernetic process management systems

In an editorial in the February 1996 issue of Technological Forecasting and Social Change Professor Linstone noted that “the rapid pace of technology has not been matched by the pace of human change.” Were we to drop our perspective a bit lower, a similarly troublesome imbalance within technology itself becomes apparent: the rapid rate of increase in the complexity of process-related technologies relative to the much slower rate of increase in the sophistication of process control systems. The conclusion at which most technological forecasts seem to arrive is that there will be a continuation—perhaps even an acceleration—of the trend toward more intricate and sweepingly extensive processes (production-related and otherwise). If so, there is the specter of a steadily increasing shortfall between requirements and capabilities, and hence the likelihood of even grander technological embarrassments. This article considers two ways in which this shortfall might be kept in check. Increases in the intricacy of processes can be met, and to a considerable extent are already being met, by exchanging conventional process control facilities for enhanced alternatives. Less certain is how expansions of project scope might best be accommodated. One possibility is to consider exchanging process control systems for broader-purview process management systems. Hence the focus in this article is on prospects for the development of macrocybernetic constructs.     

National Technology Foresight Activities Around the Globe: Resurrection and New Paradigms

This contribution summarizes recent experiences in government or national technology forecasting which are now often termed “foresight.” While the methodological tool kit changed from mathematical models to more qualitative scenarios or visions, the Delphi method has become the backbone of foresight projects. Recent national activities, being dealt with in this special issue, are compared in terms of their comprehensiveness, their science versus industry orientation, and their analytic versus action-oriented targets. Although some of these are ongoing, we can discern several new foresight paradigms. From the perspectives of sociology and political sciences, foresight elements seem to be the means of communication (or the “wiring up”) for the negotiating systems of the society. From an economics and management point of view, foresight is helpful for benchmarking and for initiating feedback processes between future demand and present day investment in research and development. From a cultural point of view, the resurrection of foresight in the 1990s seems to be related to growing globalization and at the same time the recognition of national or regional innovation systems. Finally, in terms of international affairs supranational foresight seems to become a new venture.     

Technology adoption and LDC firms

In a duopoly framework we show that among the set of firms competing with the technology leader, both relatively advanced and relatively backward firms will not be likely adopters of the superior technology. Instead, the firms in the “middle” will invest for adopting the superior technology. This particularly characterizes the innovation characteristic of LDC markets where backward firms exist along with technology super-powers.     

QTIP: Quick technology intelligence processes

Empirical technology analyses need not take months; they can be done in minutes. One can thereby take advantage of wide availability of rich science and technology publication and patent abstract databases to better inform technology management. To do so requires developing templates of innovation indicators to answer standard questions. Then, one can automate routines to generate composite information representations (“one-pagers”) that address the issues at hand, the way that the target users want.     

On preferences for being self-employed

The concept of procedural utility assumes that agents not only receive utility from outcomes but also attach an independent value to the procedures that lead to these outcomes. This paper analyzes whether the preferences that underlie procedural utility are homogeneous using the case of independence at the workplace. I exploit the event of German reunification to assign preferences for independence to respondents without using data on occupational choice or directly reported procedural preferences. I find that the self-employed report higher job satisfaction than the employed, even after controlling for income and hours worked. However, there is a significant amount of heterogeneity in this effect: while “independent types” experience a large increase in job satisfaction from being self-employed, the most “hierarchical types” could even experience a decrease.     

On optimality in collective institutional choice

Conditions are investigated under which democratic choice of the division of land between collective and “private” use and of the distribution of collective income between “needs” and “work” payments will produce a Pareto-optimal land allocation and optimal collective labor incentives. Sen's optimal rule for the degree of “needs” distribution is found to result from self-interested voting on this parameter when the distribution of labor inputs is unskewed or when votes are weighted by labor contributions. This in turn increases the optimality of land allocation, which can be further improved by a simple rental scheme. J. Comp. Econ., Dec. 1981, 5(4), pp. 392–403. Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island.     

Airports and the air transportation system: Functional refinements and functional discovery

This paper examines the technological development of the airport and the air transportation system in order to identify opportunities for increased growth and development. The paper identifies two approaches to accomodating growth, which it terms functional refinement and functional discovery. The former refers to incremental improvements, the latter to the discovery of new technological forms and functions. Functional refinements condition and frequently constrain efforts towards functional discovery. For example, efforts to advance “demand management” may not be beneficial for the exploration of new uses for air transportation technology. The paper examines how efforts towards functional refinement might be reoriented towards fostering functional discovery, identifies parallels between the air transportation system and other infrastructure systems, and examines how efforts towards functional refinement that lock out functional discovery run counter to powerful social pressures for flexible, specialized production.