Terms Of Technology Transfer Research Articles

Exploring the Relationship Among Foreign Direct Investment, Technology Transfer and Economic Growth: A Case of the Lower Northern Region in Thailand

Purpose: This article aimed to examine factors determining Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) leading to technology transfer on economic growth in Thailand and to study policies related to foreign investment promotion. Theoretical framework: The target variables were formed to set up a model specification to estimate the relationship between determinants in terms of technology transfer, FDI, and economic growth of Thailand. Design/Methodology/Approach: The research scope covered and explored the relevant dataset of each expected variable from 1995 – 2021 and some target companies enquired in 2021. The secondary data included FDI at regional level, Gross provincial products (GPP), the number of establishment enterprises in the province and others. Findings: The major factors determined FDI included the number of labour, the number of establishments, consumer price index, the value of investment and the number of internet users. These determinants had significant relationship with the GPP. Most entrepreneurs confirmed that technology transfer affected the investment decision. Research, practical & social implications: The researchers indicated that there was significant relationship among the GPP and other independent variables ;for instance, the number of labour, the number of establishments, the FDI, and the number of internet users. The government plans reflected the investment mechanism and extensively stimulated the region’s development. Originality/Value: The value of this research confirmed that technology adopted increased productivity in the production processes. The government created the investment promotion through the infrastructure and facilities which would support the area-based regional development.

Development of Small and Medium-Sized Businesses Through Technology Transfer, Innovation Strategy and Network

In this article, the authors have identified the process of technology transfer development, identified the most promising areas for the development of small and medium-sized innovative businesses. In recent years, understanding the combination of technology transfer and innovation strategy has become a key element in ensuring the development and growth of SMEs, as it has expanded their opportunities to be part of networks and facilitated their access to international markets. The authors of the article examined the basic concepts on this topic, analyzed the experience of foreign countries in terms of technology transfer, and also revealed the main problems that are an obstacle to the implementation of an innovation strategy. It is concluded that without effective cooperation and the formation of an innovative infrastructure supporting small and medium-sized enterprises, the activation of the technology transfer process is impossible, and small and medium-sized enterprises can balance their limited resources with careful participation in networks.

The Impact of Digitalization and Trade Openness on Economic Growth: New Evidence from Richest Asian Countries

The aim of this investigation is to check the impact of digitalization and trade openness on economic growth for top ten richest Asian countries. Static Gravity Model and Generalized Method of Moments Model were estimated. We found that digitalization and trade openness have a significant positive effect on economic growth. These results prove that trade openness and digitalization is a source of economic growth for richest Asian countries. Due to the magnitude of the positive externalities attached to the trade openness and digitalization, in terms of technology transfer bias, financial capacities, economic policies, human expertise, plenty of natural resources, large markets size, and spillover effect added to the domestic capacities and the national investment, the pace of the phenomenal economic performance of the Asian economies is very well marked.

Project management practices in major university-industry R&D collaboration programs - a case study.

University-industry collaboration (UIC) projects are complex undertakings, that can involve multiple parties or stakeholders. Effective management of UICs can mean the difference between success and failure, in terms of technology transfer and research commercialization. This research paper focuses on the micro-level analysis of UICs and in particular the project management practices that can help major UICs deliver benefits and broader societal impact. PM has been evolving toward more hybrid approaches involving both traditional and agile practices. A conceptualization of a hybrid approach is presented based on a literature review. This conceptualization is then used as a starting point for exploratory empirical research. Participant observation, document analysis, and thirty semi-structured interviews were conducted in a large UIC case study to help identify PM practices and check their relevance. Data analysis led to a framework comprising 29 transversal or must-have practices distributed throughout the project lifecycle and 30 contingent or optional practices, divided into traditional, agile and common. This research extends the existing knowledge on UICs by giving a micro-level perspective on managing UIC projects and providing evidence of the adoption of hybrid approaches to assure the overall governance of significant inter-organizational endeavors. The framework provides a roadmap for future major UIC projects.

Chinese investment in East Africa: History, status, and impacts

ABSTRACT This paper investigates the development trajectory of Chinese investments in two East African countries and their implications for technology transfer. It traces the transformation of Chinese economic engagements with Africa since the early independence era. Most Chinese investments were established in the past decade, except for a few aid-driven investments created in the 1970s and those made by the first wave of Chinese expatriate entrepreneurs to East Africa in the 1990s. These recent investments have concentrated in construction-related industries, export-oriented garments industry, plastic recycling and reprocessing, and agro-business. In terms of technology transfer, there are local training efforts and signs for intra-industry spillovers. Large-scale Chinese investments or development projects have established formal training programs with explicit localization targets and are more likely to collaborate with government agencies or vocational training institutes. Moreover, horizontal and vertical spillovers have also taken the form of the development of sub-contracting, local supply, distribution networks, and imitation by local firms. Nevertheless, those industry-level spillovers are less systematic due to the limitations of local investors’ financial and technological capacity.

To be "a developed country" or not to be? The effect of the Paris agreement on Turkish forest law.

The Paris Agreement (PA), which is an important step toward mitigating climate change, has ascribed new responsibilities to the signatory parties that differ from those of the Kyoto Protocol (KP). This study is focused on the new responsibilities and the reasons why Turkey has not yet assigned the agreement into its own domestic law, although it was signed on April 22, 2016. There are several political and legal reasons for this, but the most important is Turkey's membership in the OECD as a developed country. Besides, developing countries shall be supported by the Green Climate Fund (GCF) at a $100 billion budget per year. Turkey needs GCF support in terms of technology transfer, capacity building, and financial in order to achieve the agreement's goals. Turkey has demanded privileged status similar to the one in the KP, i.e., whether or not to be deemed as a developed country.The core aim of the PA is to keep global temperature increases below 20°C by the year 2030, insomuch as to limit temperature increases even further to 1.50°C. This goal depends on the mitigation of CO2 levels, which means that countries should mitigate GHG emissions caused by deforestation and take further actions by primarily abandoning fossil fuels, improving/attaching importance to energy efficiency, and changing/improving land use planning. Within this context, the second part of the study analyzes the efficiency level of forestry legislation and Turkey's climate policies in terms of the responsibilities to be assigned by the PA. The analysis is based on the question as to what extent the Turkish forestry legislation fulfills the responsibilities ascribed by the PA for preventing deforestation. Consequently, it has been concluded that eight criteria determined by the PA are not adequately included in the Turkish forestry legislation and shall require an amendment on a large scale, particularly when Turkey is deemed as a developed country.

Linkages and Spillover Effects of South African Foreign Direct Investment in Botswana and Kenya

In recent decades, the impact of South African foreign direct investment in Africa has been captured by research and policy. This paper investigates linkages and spillover effects of South African foreign direct investment in Botswana and Kenya. The study uses primary data to investigate qualitative implications. The findings reveal that South African firms operate in sectors including retail, food-processing, and information and communication technology. Linkages forged in these sectors include supply, employee, joint venture, service, and institutional nexuses. Supply and service linkages create observable spillovers which point to the fact that younger local firms tend to benefit from South African firms in terms of technology transfer and training opportunities. Host country policymakers are therefore encouraged to provide favourable incentives for foreign direct investment to promote entrepreneurship. Other policy implications are also discussed.

From imitation to inspiration: Biomimicry experiences a revival driven by a more systematic approach to explore nature's inventions for human use.

Biomimicry has been a buzzword for decades to describe efforts to exploit nature's inventions for technological innovation. Until recently, it has been largely confined to a few “poster child” applications or products, such as Velcro or self‐cleaning surfaces. The field never really gained momentum in terms of technology transfer, serious investment from industry, or even academic funding. But there are signs of a revival driven by an accumulating body of knowledge and expertise in what might be called fundamental biomimicry, which trawls nature for inspiration in a more systematic way by matching the products of evolution with specific target applications. This change came with the realization that natural systems can rarely be exploited directly for various reasons, such as the choice of materials or a lack of understanding of the underlying mechanisms. A good example of this wrongheaded approach is artificial photosynthesis. Scientists realized early on that proteins are not the best materials for artificial systems to harness sunlight for energy production, because they have to be constantly renewed. Alternative materials such as ruthenium are therefore preferred as catalysts to exploit the principles of photosynthesis [1]. To this extent, biomimicry has therefore not been oversold, but mis‐sold or misrepresented. Exploiting nature's inventions is more about ideas and inspiration rather than blind mimicry. This argument is forcibly made by Toby Kiers, who conducts biomimicry research at the Vrije Universiteit (VU) in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. “Mimicry implies copying something regardless of whether you understand it, imitating rather than understanding”, she said. “In this way, we need to be skeptical because nature never works how we think it works. When I speak at biomimicry conferences, it is usually in the role of the skeptic. My aim is to get the audience to understand the traps of blindly copying nature when we …

EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER IN KOREAN UNIVERSITIES

This paper is to elucidate the determinant of technology transfer in universities in Korea. To achieve this goal, the paper relies on a unique dataset where university data were sourced from IUCF, and data were gathered from a number of sources. We apply a negative binomial regression analysis to estimate models testing 12 research hypotheses for 135 universities in Korea. Our findings show that the characteristics of research funds, research productivity and the presence of incubators within universities are positively related with financial rewards in terms of technology transfer. Unlike in the United States, research funds sponsored by the government are not related to technology transfer. Patents, technology transfer experts, firms located adjacent to the university, incubators within the university, and research productivity are positively related to technology transfer. The empirical findings in this study indicate that in order to boost technology transfer, universities should undertake cooperative research, especially with private firms, and should also use incubators at the initial stage of the technology transfer mechanism.

The Effect of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivations on Academics’ Entrepreneurial Intention

This work investigates entrepreneurial intentions among academic scientists. Drawing from the literature on entrepreneurial behavior, it contributes to delineate the differences in motivations that are correlated with entrepreneurial intention to those that are considered to be linked to entrepreneurial behaviors. By disentangling the concept of motivations in its ultimately basic constructs of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations, we investigate how these two different types of motivations are related to the formation of entrepreneurial intention at the level of academic scientists. Through a survey conducted at the University of Ferrara—one of the leading universities in Italy in terms of technology transfer and scientific production—findings reveal that while academic entrepreneurial intention seems to be mostly driven by intrinsic motivations, the effect of extrinsic motivations, which are regarded as a main antecedent of entrepreneurial behavior among scientists, are largely mediated by academic positions, work environment and different combinations of these two factors. This work therefore highlights the importance of social norms in the investigation of entrepreneurial intention in academia.

The Impact of Science-Based Entrepreneurial Firms - A Literature Review and Policy Synthesis

How to convert scientific and technological knowledge developed in public research institutions into economic and societal impact is a key concern for both research and innovation policy. Policy makers and universities have spent considerable resources to promote the creation of science-based entrepreneurial firms (SBEFs) as a tool to create value from investments made in research. The impacts of SBEFs are, however, highly debated among both practitioners and researchers. Some argue that these firms play an important role in terms of revenue and job creation, but also as technology transfer agents. Thus, SBEFs are considered to have an important role in the innovation system by transforming scientific knowledge into application. Others question the impact of SBEFs and argue that exceptional success stories cannot be generalized and that most SBEFs are technology lifestyle firms that remain small, despite strong public support. We have conducted an extensive search in high quality international journals and identified 162 scientific articles dealing with SBEFs. We observed that the number of studies on SBEFs has grown rapidly over the last decade and has contributed to a better understanding of the role and the particular characteristics of this type of new ventures. The literature is dominated by studies from North America and Western Europe, particularly the US and the UK. A subset of 14 articles explicitly considered the impacts generated by SBEFs. Two different perspectives can be identified. Some studies explored the economic impacts of SBEF, often in terms of contributions to regional development. Other studies discussed the impacts of SBEFs as technology transfer agents serving a role in the dissemination of research into application. Most studies portray a highly positive image of the impacts generated by SBEFs. However, the literature is dominated by a handful of successful case examples and some authors question whether the general prominence given to SBEFs in government policies can be justified. SBEFs seem to be a special type of firms that have other purposes than other startups in terms of technology transfer and other societal benefits. However, many potential types of impacts have not been sufficiently explored by empirical data. For instance, successful acquisitions are rarely included in the datasets used. Much work remains before any general conclusions can be made whether and under which conditions SBEFs creates an impact that exceeds the alternatives. Another subset of 28 articles included empirical data regarding the links between the start-up conditions and the performance of SBEFs. It seems clear that SBEFs face particular opportunities and challenges compared to other new ventures related to their academic origin and their need to develop links to commercial actors, particularly in the earliest stages of venture development. The studies investigate a number of factors have been found to influence the performance of SBEFs in different contexts, but how these factors interrelates remains scarcely studied. There is no doubt that policies and support can promote the performance and impacts of SBEFs, but the mechanisms leading to successful outcomes appears to be highly context specific. Thus, policy actions need to be differentiated according to the particular regional and institutional context, the phase of development, and the business model chosen by the SBEFs, as well as the type of impacts sought. In the 42 studies reviewed above that considered impact and performance, we observed that a broad range of indicators were used. Most studies were looking at firm level performance using indicators such as survival, employment, resource acquisition, financial indicators and growth measures. Although indicators to measure impact at regional level and in terms of technology transfer were discussed in several studies, it seems very difficult to measure these types of outcomes. None of the studies explored the non-economic and societal impacts generated by SBEFs in any detail. SBEFs have long development paths and successful firms typically remain small for a rather long time period before they start to grow. To be able to capture this development there is a need to measure their impact over a longer period of time than most current studies have done. Studies following the development of a cohort of SBEFs or university technologies over an extensive period of time, where different economic and societal outcomes are considered, would yield important new insights.

Cooperation between China and Tanzania on ICT: fish, fishing tackle or fishing skills?

Tanzania has ambitions of moving from a mere consumer of information and communication technologies to a designing and manufacturing base. This paper aims to assess the role of public–private partnerships with Chinese institutions in the achievement of this goal. Through an in-depth case study, this paper examines the contributions of three Chinese multinationals in terms of technology transfer and technological capacity building in local firms in Tanzania. The analysis contrasts the organisation of improvements on the manner of technology transfer and capacity building in these partnerships with prior Sino-Tanzanian partnership efforts in technology and industry. The Chinese multinationals had a labour localisation rate of 60% on average, with some training services provided to Tanzanian nationals and supply of services and equipment to Tanzanian firms. However, the overall level of technology transfer continues to be weak. Observed barriers to technology transfer include weak incentives for collaboration between Chinese and Tanzanian firms and low-level technology embedded in activities offshored by the Chinese multinationals to Tanzania.

An Empirical Analysis of Technology Transfer of National R&D Projects in South Korea

This study is aimed at seeking policy implications for the policy makers of South Korean government and finding a direction to support R&D institutions in performing R&D activities more efficiently, by analyzing the factors influencing technology transfer of the national R&D projects. The data retrieved from NTIS (National Science & Technology Information Service) was used in analyzing the results of 575 projects with 1,903 cases of technology transfer, performed by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, between 2002 and 2012. We found that there were significant differences between the government funded institutions and the universities and between basic R&D and applied ones. We also discovered that the government funded institutions did not necessarily take a better position than the universities in terms of the quantity of technology transfer. Lastly, the applied R&D of the universities was very vulnerable in terms of technology transfer.

Disclosure of university research to third parties: A non-market perspective on an Italian university

Nations, universities, and regional governments promote the dissemination of scientific and technical knowledge. They focus on knowledge-based innovations and the university’s economic function in terms of technology transfer, intellectual property, university-industry-government relations etc. Faculties other than engineering or applied sciences, however, may not be able to recognize opportunities in this ‘linear model’ of technology transfer. We elaborate a non-market perspective on the third mission in terms of disclosure of the knowledge and areas of expertise available for disclosure to other audiences at a provincial university. The use of information and communications technologies can enhance communication between actors on the supply and demand sides. Using an idea developed in the context of the Dutch science shops, university staff were questioned about keywords and areas of expertise with the specific purpose of disclosing this information to audiences other than academic colleagues. The results were brought online in a hyperlink index structure.

Foreign‐born academic scientists: entrepreneurial academics or academic entrepreneurs?

Although foreign‐born scholars make up a significant portion of the US professoriate, little is known about how their ‘foreign‐born’ identity directly or indirectly affects their entrepreneurial prowess. This article integrates role identity theory with theoretical arguments from social network and cultural proximity theories to examine whether foreign‐born academic scientists can better be characterized as entrepreneurial academics (strong government grant productivity) or academic entrepreneurs (strong involvement in the creation and commercialization of university‐invented technologies). Our analysis indicates that foreign‐born academic scientists seem more successful in attracting research resources, but are less successful in exploiting their inventions through entrepreneurial activities. They can therefore be best described as entrepreneurial academics. These findings may partially explain the tepid performance of many research‐intensive universities in terms of technology transfer and commercialization. We discuss the policy implications of our findings and provide guidance for academic entrepreneurs.

The Rise of Turkey and the New Mediterranean Challenges and Opportunities for Energy Cooperation in a Region in Transition

This paper, presenting a wide range of issues related to the role of Turkey in the Mediterranean energy context, aims to provide a comprehensive framework of understanding of the growing strategic relevance of Turkey for both the European Union and the overall Euro-Mediterranean region. In particular, the paper focuses on the EU-Turkey energy relations and outlines the crucial role of natural gas in enhancing energy cooperation between the two players. In 2010 about 80% of EU gas imports derived from only three suppliers: Russian Federation, Norway and Algeria. This heavy dependence on such a few suppliers stimulated the European Commission to make the concept of diversification a cornerstone of its energy policy and to launch the concept of the Southern Gas Corridor, an initiative aimed to develop a natural gas transit corridor from Caspian and Middle Eastern gas-rich regions to Europe, in order to ease the dependency on the natural gas imported from the Russian Federation. An initiative that could shift the centre of gravity of the regional gas transit from the north to the south of the Black Sea, allowing Turkey to become a key transit country in the future European gas market; a pivotal element in the European gas security of supply architecture. Furthermore, the paper also considers the enormous renewable energy potential of Southern and Eastern Mediterranean Countries, to which Turkey could greatly contribute in terms of technology transfer and manufacturing know-how. Turkey’s involvement in the Union for the Mediterranean offers a great opportunity for energy cooperation both between the EU and Turkey and within the overall Euro-Mediterranean region. Such large-scale renewable energy projects could greatly contribute to the economic development of the overall Mediterranean region, and also to its social and political stability. Considering the lack of a wide and comprehensive EU-Turkey energy cooperation scheme, the paper proposes a series of policy priorities pointed to enhance this bilateral relationship and also the wider Euro-Mediterranean integration process.

Between market forces and knowledge based motives: the governance of defence innovation in the UK

The purpose of this contribution is to examine the evolutionary transformations that have characterised the UK defence innovation system since the mid 1980s. It focuses on the central and challenging issue faced by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in implementing effective governance mechanisms emerging from the continuous trade-off between short-term market driven measures motivated by efficiency arguments, and more long term and relational considerations in terms of knowledge economics. Furthermore, in terms of technology transfer, this evolution has been accompanied by a gradual shift from an initial logic of spin-off to society expected from government driven military projects, to a logic of spin-in where the main concern of the military sector is to broaden its industrial and R&D base.

The Interconnections of Regional and Domestic Cluster Development Processes

SUMMARY The regional clusters have an important position in the modern world. One of the most prominent clusters in the Nordic area (Scandinavia, Baltic region and Russia) has been formed in the wood and forest industries. The aim of this study is to investigate the dual impact of regional clusters on the development of local clustering and networking ties. In this respect the positive impact in terms of technology transfers, financial support and market access are analysed alongside potentially more detrimental aspects, such as replacing local value-adding processes with roundwood and paperwood exports and limiting the international marketing options of the acquired producers. The results indicate that regional clustering has several positive influences on the development of local/domestic wood and forest clusters in terms of technology transfer and foreign market access, but dominant intra-corporate networks can also lead to centralised operations that set a lower value on local supply chain relationships.

Reward Systems and NSF University Research Centers: The Impact of Tenure on University Scientists' Valuation of Applied and Commercially Relevant Research

Over the past three decades, U.S. science policy (1) has shifted from decentralized support of small, investigator-initiated research projects to more centralized, block grant-based, multidisciplinary research centers. No matter one's take on the revolutionary nature of this shift, (2) a major consequence is that university scientists, now more than ever, are subject to multiple and often conflicting demands. The purpose of this article is to examine the impact of having tenure on university scientists' consideration of these demands, particularly the demand for applied and commercially relevant research. We are interested in scientists who work in a particular type of university research one previously referred to as the multidiscipline multipurpose university research center, or MMURC (Bozeman & Boardman, 2003, 2004b). These scientists are interesting because MMURCs, at least those funded by the federal government (e.g., the National Science Foundation's Engineering Research Centers and Science and Technology Centers programs), require that scientists be tenured or occupy a tenure-track position in an academic department. More important here, MMURCs expect of university scientists research and other behaviors that generally do not align with the traditional university reward system. As a faculty member in the traditional academic department, the contemporary university scientist has a key responsibility to create knowledge, and for the most part success is measured by peer evaluation and publication despite calls for emphasis in tenure and promotion decisions on the many other activities and tasks (e.g., teaching, applied research, and community outreach) that university scientists perform (Boyer, 1990; Braxton & Del Favero, 2002; Diamond, 1993, 1999). As MMURC faculty, the university scientist generally works as part of a multidisciplinary and interinstitutional effort to apply existing knowledge, and success in many cases is measured in terms of technology transfer from university to industry. (3) In fact, this issue of misalignment between reward systems and faculty behavior is a problem not just for university faculty in the hard sciences or more specifically in MMURCs, but also for faculty working in the social sciences and in professional fields including medicine, business, and management. (4) Geisler (1989) has suggested that such misalignment may discourage university scientists who are not tenured but who are tenure-track (hereafter referred to as junior-level scientists) from performing applied science with industrial partners: Faculties in research universities are required to conduct basic research and to publish the results. Such research outputs are then used in promotion and compensation decisions. Therefore, when working on industrial type problems, faculty may feel constrained by limitations of time and by the publishability of the research they undertake. This is particularly the case with junior faculty, reluctant to join an industry-sponsored project that demands time but may not hold much promise of academic outputs and rewards. (p. 50) Further, university administrators often incorrectly assume that extradepartmental research units such as MMURCs have no problems in getting untenured university scientists to engage in applied research and related technology transfer activities (Friedman & Friedman, 1985). More recently, the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE) expressed this sentiment in its Higher Education Report, reporting that the traditional university reward system pays short shrift to applied and industry-related research, thereby hindering the institutionalization of the scholarship of application (Braxton, Luckey, & Helland, 2002, pp. 74-75). Similarly, a recent presentation by Lynn Preston, (5) Director of the Engineering Research Centers (ERC) Program at the National Science Foundation (NSF), to the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) Engineering Research Council highlighted that tenure and promotion committees are more often than not too narrowly defined. …

Assessing Algeria's growth competitiveness: Results from a cluster model

This article assesses Algeria's growth competitiveness in relation to Maghrib and non-Maghrib countries. The article uses the pillars of growth competitiveness model. According to this, growth competitiveness rests on three pillars: macroeconomic environment, public institutions, and technological progress. We operationalise this model by applying a statistical cluster procedure to data for 101 countries for 2003. The results indicate that Algeria has more in common with Ghana, Tanzania, Indonesia, Pakistan, Senegal and Sri Lanka than it does with its neighbouring Morocco or Tunisia. From a Maghrib perspective, Algeria has the least stable macroeconomic environment and slowest technological progress. The country wastes the most of its economic resources and has the lowest credit rating and weakest rule of law. It is also the least innovative and has achieved the least in terms of technology transfer. On the whole, Algeria lags far behind many countries. We explain the reasons for this by using Ibn Khaldun's theory of the rise and fall of dynasties.