International Technological Collaboration Research Articles

Globalizing Software Development

In an attempt to provide insight into managing successful international technology collaboration, this article presents a framework to guide managers in dividing and integrating labor and assessing methodological and organizational weaknesses. The analysis draws on technology and management literatures and specifically addresses outsourcing systems development work to emerging economies. Recommendations are provided not only on how to organize international work at present, but also on the characteristics of projects and tasks that are good candidates for international outsourcing, and what capabilities must change in order to move to an international project management methodology involving lower project risk and lower coordination costs.

The U.S. program of fusion energy research and development: Report of the fusion review panel of the president's council of advisors on science and technology

Funding for fusion energy R&D by the Federal government is an important investment in the development of an attractive and possibly essential new energy source for this country and the world in the middle of the next century and beyond. This funding also sustains an important field of scientific research - plasma science - in which the United States is the world leader and which has generated a panoply of insights and techniques widely applicable in other fields of science and in industry. And U.S. funding has been crucial to a productive, equitable, and durable international collaboration in fusion science and technology that represents the most important instance of international scientific cooperation in history as well as the best hope for timely commercialization of fusion at this time because the development costs are too high and the potential economic returns too distant. But funding fusion is a bargain for society as a whole. However, in light of present congressional funding climates the authors are suggesting a program which falls far short of what US DOE is proposing, but provides monies to keep the program alive, and to retain limited participation in the international program which currently is aimed at themore » construction of ITER. This limited funding will severly strain the program as it exists domestically at present, will limit industrial participation, will stretch the reasonable date for an operating demonstation fusion reactor, but will maintain the basic stucture of a domestic fusion research program.« less

Partners and rivals: a model of international collaboration in advanced technology

Concepts from bargaining theory and neorealist theory are integrated in a partners-and-rivals (PAR) model that explains the terms of collaboration between rational actors (for example, firms) that are potential competitors. The model contends that the stronger player's incentive to collaborate is determined not only by its interest in absolute welfare benefits from collaboration but also by its concern about and loss of utility from unfavorable shifts in relative position vis-à-vis the weaker player. Two propositions are derived from the model. According to the disparity principle, the stronger player's net payoff from collaboration (the sum of its welfare benefits and positional costs) is a function of the disparity in capabilities between the two players. The net payoff curve is low when the disparity in capabilities is large, reaches an optimum when the disparity is moderate, and then falls again as the disparity approaches zero. The slope of the curve is also affected by a coefficient, α, which reflects the stronger player's sensitivity to positional losses. According to the compensation principle, for collaboration to arise, the weaker player must make an adjustment in the terms of the bargain, or a side-payment, to compensate the stronger player for its positional losses from collaboration. The validity of the PAR model is tested by comparing Franco-German collaboration on military aircraft in two cases, one in which the disparity in capabilities between the players was moderate and the other in which the disparity was small.

Policy options for government funding of advanced technology— the case of international collaboration in the European Telecommunication Satellite Programme

The European Telecommunication Satellite Programme is a major case of international collaboration in advanced technology. The study examines the success of participating countries vis-à-vis the alternative of a national project and identifies the implications of maintaining national efforts in parallel to the collaborative venture. It was found that France and the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) were most successful in the collaborative programme when achieving the funding objective of establishing supply security. The success was based on experience gained through previous efforts or parallel national activities and was realised at the expense of the United Kingdom, Italy and the smaller countries. This resulted in bitter feelings when France and FRG left the collaborative programme just as the funding objective shifted from supply security to economic growth. From the lessons learned, an attempt is made to outline the potential and limit of international collaboration as a policy option for government funding of advanced technology. This appears of particular interest for current policy-making on European space and technology programmes.

Domestic structure and international technological collaboration: Ocean pollution regulation

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to explore the thesis that the domestic structural milieu (i.e. the state‐society relationship) provided a crucial link in the policy process of intergovernmental attempts to prevent and control ocean pollution from ships and oil during the period 1974–1978. Essentially, it is argued that the ability of political leaders to mobilize domestic resources toward environmental objectives is dependent upon the structure of the domestic political system (i.e. the intragovemmental framework), and the relationship between public and private actors (public‐private structure). In order to test this hypothesis, the study utilizes both aggregate and case study data. As predicted, both aspects of the state‐society relationship are found to be positively related to national support for ocean pollution regulation within the context of advanced industrial countries. In addition, suggestions are made for future research along these lines in order to further develop the linkage between ...

Self- reliance 2: Self- reliance and international collaboration in science and technology

Self- reliance 2: Self- reliance and international collaboration in science and technology