Technology Acquisition Strategies Research Articles

An empirical analysis of innovation strategies of biotechnology firms in the U.S.

The paper explores the strategies of biotechnology firms in the U.S. through a mail questionnaire study. Based on the responses of 89 companies we have developed strategy archetypes of these firms in R&D, marketing, and technology acquisition. In R&D, we found the firms to follow either incremental or radical strategy. In marketing, the firms use either a defender or an innovator strategy. In technology acquisition, firms differ in terms of their emphasis on licensing or developing new technology. The interrelationship among the strategy groups is weak. The R&D and technology acquisition strategies are related in the sense that aggressive technology strategy dictates radical R&D behavior with emphasis on development of new technology. We have found that firms following aggressive technology strategy tend to follow conservative marketing strategy. This is consistent with an earlier study by of German firms where it was found that firms tend to balance their technical and marketing risks. The paper also provides additional information about the factors considered to be important in product decisions for various strategies.

An exploration of factors affecting the integration of in-house R&D with external technology acquisition strategies of a firm

Results of an empirical study of 31 cases of external technology acquisition are reported. A ten-stage framework of the external technology acquisition and implementation process is proposed, and the effect of a number of variables on the extent of research and development (R&D) involvement in each of these stages is explored. The relative importance of these variables in influencing R&D's involvement is also discussed. Having formal procedures to include in-house R&D in the process has an impact in the acquisition phase of the process, while in the implementation phase R&D's involvement seems more influenced by the possession of appropriate capabilities in-house. Maturity of the technology, urgency of its need and its importance to the firm are important variables which are found to be negatively correlated with the extent of R&D's involvement and are influential in a number of staged. This finding is discussed.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>