Scope Economy And Issues In Technology Management

Abstract

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0.5in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">In the 1980s, studies of technology transfer in dual-use industries have suggested a slow down in military technology spillovers to the civilian sector. This paper takes an econometric approach to measuring the bilateral spillover effect using the airframe manufacturing industry as a case study. The diffusion of technology benefits the industrial art regardless of where technological innovation is originated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>When horizontal spillover is measured as a bilateral flow of technology transfer regardless of the direction of the flow, i.e., either from military to civilian or from civilian to military, we find no evidence of a slow down, in airframe manufacturing at least, between 1961 and 1985, a period of rapid technological change in both military and commercial aircraft production</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: Courier;">. </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">We also trace the flow of technological development in aircraft engine and measure its effect downstream on aircraft manufacturing productivity to obtain an estimate for any vertical spillover.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>We find a negative relationship between upstream innovation and downstream manufacturing cost, but the linkage effect is statistically insignificant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>We suggest that further study should be pursued in a framework incorporating some concepts from organizational theory to better understand the differences in institutional structure that affect the adaptation and development of dual-use technologies, and the social setting that become necessary to achieve dual-use.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">   </span></span></span></p>