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Organizational and technological antecedents for knowledge acquisition and learning.
journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-08, 08:52 authored by Joseph Tidd, Martin J TrewhellaThis paper examines the factors affecting the decision to acquire external technology and the relative importance of different technology acquisition strategies pursued by British and Japanese firms. The paper draws on a study of 38 firms, consisting of 23 UK-based and 15 Japanese firms. This is not a comparative study of British and Japanese technology acquisition strategies. Rather, we aim to identify common factors affecting the decision to acquire external technology and the means by which firms attempt to do this. We identify two clusters of variable which appear to affect the decision to acquire technology. Firstly, an organization's inheritance, which includes corporate strategy, competencies, culture and what we refer to as management's `comfort¿ with the technology. Secondly, the characteristics of the technology to be acquired, specifically, its competitive impact, complexity, codifiability and what we refer to as `credibility¿ potential. Together, these factors will determine the degree and nature of technology acquisition strategy. We find that contrary to the present academic preoccupation with alliances and joint ventures, the firms examined ranked universities, research consortia and licensing as the most important sources of external technology.
History
Publication status
- Published
Journal
R&D ManagementISSN
1467-9310Publisher
R&D ManagementExternal DOI
Volume
27Page range
359-375ISBN
0033-6807Department affiliated with
- SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit Publications
Notes
Winner of the Epton Prize for Best PaperFull text available
- No
Peer reviewed?
- Yes
Legacy Posted Date
2012-02-06Usage metrics
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