Influencing Technology Transfer Research Articles

Strategic reflections on the European Patent Office

Most of the literature on technology transfer has tended to focus on the country or regional level, neglecting to look at the continent-level flow of knowledge that is becoming more important due to regional trading blocs. This study sought to fill the gap in research on the role of technology transfer in the European continent (i.e., countries inside and outside the Eurozone) by focusing on environment-related patents. The research also included examining the effects of environmental water-related adaptation technology and climate change mitigation patents on real gross domestic product. The results contribute to the literature on technology transfer policies by highlighting how environmental patents influence Europe’s economic growth rate and whether countries’ geographical location can affect their level of entrepreneurship and innovation. The technology-organization-environment (TOE) and sustainability perspectives were used as a theoretical framework for understanding how geographical contexts influence technology transfer in terms of environment-related patents. Implications for management, theory and policy are discussed together with the study’s limitations and suggestions for future research.

Factors influencing technology transfer

This paper treats technology transfer as primarily a communication activity. Barriers to technology transfer can be erected by (1) organizational structures which inhibit the flow of communication between different groups; (2) the technology imposing specialized knowledge on the people who work with it; and, (3) the individuals themselves who have cultural biases which inhibit communication with people from different professional and experiential backgrounds. Some of these barriers can be overcome by creating small cross-organizational groups or partnerships, by increasing exposure to the technology, by rewarding joint work and by promoting people who are willing to champion technology transfer efforts within a corporation.

The Determinants of Industrial Research and Development: A Study of the Chemical, Drug, and Petroleum Industries

Economists have recently grown interested in doing research on research or R & D, as it is called in industrial circles. Several studies have tested Schumpeter's hoary hypothesis that large firms are responsible for most industrial inventive activity.1 Few of these studies, however, suggest why this hypothesis is apparently valid for some industries and not for others. And statistical studies going beyond this question, to try to relate R & D expenditures to firm profit expectations and the availability of funds as in other investment decisions, are rare (Mansfield, 1964; Mueller, 1967). This paper reports the results of an empirical investigation into the determinants of research expenditures in three industries-drugs, chemicals, and petroleum refining. These industries have three advantages for such a study: (1) they are among the leaders in total R & D expenditures; (2) most activity is concentrated in an appreciable number of large or moderately large firms; and (3) government support of research work is relatively small, so that decisions are more closely analogous to ordinary