Measuring the Effects of Technology Suppliers’ Characteristics on Degree of Inter-Firm Technology Transfer Based on Knowledge-Based View and Organizational Learning Perspective

Abstract

The inter-firm technology transfers within collaborative joint ventures (JVs) have often involved close tradeoffs between the willingness of technology supplier to transfer a considerable amount of their technologies to technology recipient, degree of protection of the proprietary technology, knowledge and competencies as the source of the supplier’s competitive advantage, and motivation to transfer. While technology transfers through JVs, have been acknowledged by many studies as the most efficient formal mechanism in internalizing the partner’s technologies, knowledge and skills, the transfer process has frequently involved various facilitators, actors and complex relationship between partners which cause direct impact on degree of technology transfer. Based on the underlying knowledge-based view (KBV) and organizational learning (OL) perspectives, the main objective of this paper is to empirically examine the effects of two critical elements of technology supplier characteristics: partner protectiveness and transfer capacity on two dimensions of degree of technology transfer: degree of tacit and explicit knowledge.