The External Knowledge Sources for Firms' Technology Capabilities Accumulation

Abstract

This paper handles two questions: Do external technology sources have determined technology capability accumulation in Chinese firms? If so, which sources are more important, foreign technologies or Chinese institutions and customers? To deal with these questions, according to our research on some Chinese firms, we select some types of technological change and the stage of firms' technology capabilities evolution as explanatory variables of external knowledge sources. Basing on the survey data administered to six manufacturing firms of four industries in China, we have found that they all view external knowledge sources as important forces to accumulate technology capabilities. Furthermore, through data analysis, we discover that the six firms can be divided into two types: one type consists of five firms, their primary external sources are foreign firms. The second type consists of two firms, their primary external knowledge sources are Chinese universities and the institutes of scientific research and customers. This result is consistent with our theory analysis