Inward Technology Transfer as an Interactive Process

Lack of internal technological know-how can inhibit external know-how accumulation and a firm’s receptivity to external developed technology. Organization is responsible for accumulating and retaining technical competence. Organization's ability to evaluate and utilize external knowledge is related to its prior knowledge and expertise. Organizations build up a body of knowledge and skills through experience and learning ‑ by ‑ doing.

Inward Technology Transfer: – will be successful only if an organization has not only the ability to acquire but also the ability to assimilate and apply ideas, knowledge, devices and artefacts effectively; – is about creating or raising the capability for innovation.

This requires an organization to adopt the 4A Model:  Search and scan for innovation (awareness);  Recognize the potential benefit of the innovation by associating it with internal organization needs and capabilities;  Communicate and assimilate them within the organization;  And apply them for competitive advantage.

Awareness Defined as being informed and vigilant of technical and commercial information using the processes of:  Scanning / browsing (purposeful search and undirected viewing – formal interaction);  Networking (process of interaction with other people - informal interaction).

Association Defined as the capacity to understand the organization’s operations, markets, capabilities and future business plans, thus needs. Creation of linkages between internal and external situations of commercial and technical opportunities. A good understanding of the organization’s needs will produce a high signal-to-noise ratio.

Assimilation Defined as the organizations capacity to assimilate and accumulate knowledge. Process will be explored through the use of an interactive modelling technique known as cognitive mapping.

Application Application of the business opportunity for competitive advantage. This is the stage where the organization brings out commercial benefit from the technology

Results From The Studies  Effective scanning and networking by individuals are dependent on the recognition by the organization of the importance of these activities;  Equal study of technical and commercial information;  Future direction of the organization to define the business strategy;  Lateral communication; External “climate” and performance of the business; “Happy teams”; Business leadership; “Spirit” and a sense of excitement.  The effective management of a range of such behaviours will enable organizations to recognize the value of new, external information, assimilate it and apply it to its needs.

The figure portrays the process model of inward technology transfer, whose complexity may help to explain why ITT is so difficult to achieve Accumulation Assimilation

Combination of “stochastic” and “cartesian” behaviours within the organization