Non-multinational firms and transfer of technology to less developed countries

Abstract

Importing technology from multinational corporations (MNCs) has certain disadvantages for the less developed countries (LDCs) and there is a need for such countries to seek alternative sources of technology. One such source might be non-multinational firms but little is known of the relative merits of non-multinationals. This paper describes a comparison of non-multinational with multinationals in 47 transfers of technology from the UK to India. For a number of important factors, we found little difference between the roles of MNCs and non-MNCs. It is suggested that this lack of difference may be due to the non-MNCs in the sample having some of the same advantages in negotiation as the MNCs — namely a high prestige in the Indian market and possession of some specialist technological expertise. In other words, the multinationality of MNCs may not be as important as is sometimes suggested. Other factors, such as prestige, may be of greater importance. This makes the search for alternative suppliers of technology more difficult since non-MNCs with no prestige are, almost by definition, not known to the LDC.