An interdisciplinary model of international technology transfer

Abstract

Central to this thesis is the issue of how to account for the effects of micro-level organisational factors such as culture and social norms on the technology transfer process. The expansion of multinational firms has created a need for increased international technology transfer into nations with distinctly different cultures, social norms and · methods of organisation. The dilemma of how to deal with the transfer of technology into different countries is a continuing problem for academics in the innovation adoption field and corporate managers alike. A synthesis of the literature revealed a lack of understanding associated with the influence of managerial interventions, social, cultural and other organisational processes on the adoption decision. In an international context, it was found that there was an increased need to understand cross-national differences in the determinants of technology adoption. Further, the bulk of conceptual technology transfer models were found to be difficuit to operationalise and overwhelmingly unidimensional. This precipitated a need to develop a pragmatic interactive and dynamic interdisciplinary model that could be used to quantitatively predict transfer difficulty and develop implementation strategy. Longitudinal research methods were used to investigate the implementation of a knowledge management system within a multinational automotive manufacturing organisation. Focusing on two distinct cultures - Australia and India, observations showed that innovation perceptions have a comparatively minor influence on the adoption decision and advocated a need for frameworks capable of explaining adoption and diffusion from a cultural and social basis. These findings were subsequently reinforced through an investigative case study of technology transfer within the automotive manufacturing organisation at a global (or corporate) level. Both research studies supported the conceptualisation of the transfer process as a game between two players (management and the workforce) each weighing perceived advantages and disadvantages associated with adoption relative to their internal schemata. The extent and seriousness of the game is in the first instance determined by the technology itself and later moderated by the cultural, organisational and social norms that dictate play. This game-play notion was the platform upon which specifications for the international technology transfer model were developed. An integration of the literature review and research case studies, produced a top-level requirements model based on various inputs, desired outputs and operating conditions. A variety of interdisciplinary concepts including: technology classification, social capital, the social discount rate, investment appraisal (utilising cost-benefit analysis) and game theory, were used to construct a threestage model of technology transfer. An innovative hypothesis is put forward, enabling the derivation of the social discount rate (based on the social time preference rate) from estimates of a culture's social capital (principally based on measures of trust). Verification and validation of the model showed significant explanatory power in a retrospective context. It also highlighted the model's ability to differentiate between cultures and its potential ability as a predictive tool. It is thought that the greatest application for the model lies in its potential use as a pre-transfer assessment tool aiding corporate managers in the formulation of implementation strategy.