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The important role of technological learning in the success of enterprises, especially in developing countries, is undeniable. Besides that, the complex nature of learning requires a comprehensive framework. So, developing countries need to have a learning strategy that can help them to increase learning through collaboration. In this research, a mixed method study, after reviewing the literature and previous research, the theoretical framework of the research was extracted and the protocol for the interview was formed. Then the dimensions and factors of technological learning were derived from interviews with managers and experts who were in the Iranian oil agreement writing and document reviewing teams. To form the framework presented in this study, it is necessary for developing countries to implement a transition from the control and prescription phase to the incentive and technology support phase. Motivational regulation can also lead to better results in industry. The results of this paper show that the realization of technological learning in the oil industry of developing countries depends on increasing the absorptive capacity of domestic enterprises as well as governments creating the necessary infrastructure. The results also show the dependency of technological learning on the cultural, social, and international relations of country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The university-industry contractual research collaborations to solve complex problems jointly and create social and economic impact have long existed. Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs) constitute formal technology intermediaries established to strengthen university-industry collaborations. However, the differences in needs and capabilities, individual and organizational backgrounds, and innovative learning modes inhibit effective partnerships. We develop a conceptual framework that explains how TTOs can catalyze these collaborations in Botswana. We use the grounded theory approach to examine the TTOs' challenges and opportunities in strengthening university-industry linkages. Notably, we employ inductive analysis to synthesize interview data and analyze it using domain analysis and componential analysis. Data were extracted from the university and industry policies and documents and interviews with 102 participants from two universities (42.2%) and three industry firms (57.8%) involved in technology transfer. We found 71.6% had excellent knowledge and experience and 28.4% had varying degrees of experience. While individual or independent consultancies (44.1%) lead, TTOs facilitate collaboration through contractual research agreements (32.4%), technology licensing (22.5%), and joint ventures (10.8%). This demonstrates entities' significant access to each other's financial and technological resources. This allows entities to generate new knowledge, equip each other with tools and competencies required to produce commercial products and new revenue streams. Most significantly, while Botswana has displayed remarkable progress toward strengthening its institutional support systems for technology transfer and commercialization, there is a shortage of IP expertise at universities and industries, possibly leading to low levels of IP awareness. Also, most institutions have incomplete IP strategies, and there is inadequate administration and enforcement of intellectual property rights systems at the national level, possibly contributing to low national IP filings. Therefore, we recommend entities fully engage in vigorous IP activities, review and finalize their IP policies and make them flexible yet equitably based on the needs of the collaborating industry firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to investigate empirically the effects of technology management on firm innovation, this paper considers the antecedents and multidimensional views of technology management mechanisms on innovation performance in medium- and large-scale manufacturing firms in a developing country, namely Ethiopia. Using simple random sampling, a total of 200 firms were chosen for this study to obtain responses from respondents. Four hypotheses were proposed for testing. Structural equation modelling and cross-sectional design were used to analyze the data using the LISREL 8.80 SIMPLIS program software tool. This study finds technology transfer and technology acquisition have significant positive effects on process innovation, product innovation, and method innovation. Technology process has a significant positive effect on process and method innovation. Technology absorption has a significant positive effect on product innovation. The major implication of this study is that technology management, coupled with appropriate technology management policies and strategies, is an appropriate resource to be used in the organization to enhance firm performance, particularly innovation and creativity. The paper contributes to the literature in that, unlike previous studies that are based on one aspect of technology management practices, this study examined the effects of each different type of technology management dimension on firms' innovation. Thus, this study helps to gain further insights into the effects of technology management practices on firm innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This research aims to develop an improved model that promotes reverse engineering /RE/ practice in metal engineering industries (MEIs). RE is one cost-effective technology transfer /TT/ and innovation method that improves organizational performance. However, only a few scholars have written on the adoption of RE models, and no one has contextualized TT and innovation models as a means to adopt RE practice. Methodology: Primarily, the study conducted a systematic literature review based on previous works to develop a conceptual model for RE adoption. To do this, the researchers conducted an intensive literature review and identified factors contributing to the model. Contextualizing TT and innovation factors and models within the new RE adoption model is also a significant part of the work. After a comparative analysis, the researchers developed the improved RE adoption model that enhances the performance of MEIs. Finding: The majority of previous related literature focuses on RE hardware, with only a few authors acknowledging the soft aspects, i.e., managerial and legal issues of RE practice. Besides, no authors contextualized factors of TT and innovation within the RE adoption. In this study, the researchers identified and clustered RE adoption factors as organizational, technological, managerial, and resource-based from previous RE adoption models and contextualization of TT and innovation adoption factors. Originality: To the best of the writers' knowledge, no previous authors have contextualized TT and innovation models within the adoption of RE. However, such models have a substantial impact on adopting the practice. Hence, the researchers developed an improved model by examining and contextualizing the existing models that can impact MEI performance through improving product, process, and technological capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the pineapple fruit contributing significantly towards Ghana's non-traditional export, the empirical space deficiently accounts for innovations within the sector. This article addresses prime questions that beg answering such as: the origin of innovations, when, how, what conditions facilitate adoption intensity or otherwise, what type of innovations are systematically associated with pineapple production. This study fills this lacuna by chronicling the main pineapple innovations using innovation history methodology embedded in an agricultural innovation system conceptual framing. Relying on a qualitative approach, the findings showed the emergence of two varieties – smooth cayenne and sugar loaf, overtaken by the MD2 variety. Degreening, forcing, and global Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) dominate. The Millennium Development Authority programme consolidated business plan development, efficient marketing, record keeping, and farming as a business. Successes were recorded in some instances with the transfer of technology extension model, but this article argues that the agricultural innovation system can be prioritized given the plurality of actors. The innovation history is trivialized, but it is essential for learning and co-learning in building stronger partnerships. This article underscores a radical use of innovation history both as a methodological tool and means of documenting innovations, particularly in the global south, where copious record-keeping remains rare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores South African manufacturing of medical devices, focusing on firms' acquisition of imported and domestic technologies through technology transfer and their related absorptive capacity. Using an exploratory sequential mixed-methods approach, this paper demonstrates that technology transfer does occur in the medical device industry in South Africa, and that the absorptive capacity displayed by firms in the industry is sufficient to facilitate technology transfer. The results of the analysis suggest that there is room for policymakers to create and promote sectoral coherence and to coordinate the various stakeholders for the industry to grow. This study contributes to the scarce literature on technology transfer in the medical device industry in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Africa's poor economic performance in recent years has prompted calls by policymakers for structural transformation. To break the impasse, a stronger focus on innovation is one strategy the country has articulated through a new White Paper on Science, Technology and Innovation. Writing from this policy context, we adapt the revised contingent effectiveness model of technology transfer by including indigenous knowledge as a transfer object and emphasizes citizen needs and reparations as part of the demand environment, and appropriation as a transfer medium. Analytically, our use of this adaptation is to critically reflect on the typology of indicators produced in the first South African national survey of intellectual property and technology transfer at publicly financed research institutions. We find the dimension of least representation but presumably greatest significance in the typology is that of 'public value'. Our contention is that the output-based and commercially-biased indicators of technology transfer activity, which predominate in the typology, are insufficient to inform decision-making on technology transfer policy in a context of profound national socio-economic challenges and deep historical legacies of indigenous knowledge misappropriation. Broader evaluation data would form a richer, more inclusive evidence-base to inform new investments, as well as ongoing policy assessment, at both institutional and national level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technology and innovation are important in addressing complex problems in the agricultural sector in many developing communities. However, ways and mechanisms to integrate them in the agricultural sector are still a challenge due to the lack of clear pathways and trajectories. Value chains are seen as a strong policy instrument to increase profitability in the agricultural sector; there is also debate around whether value chains can be a potential option to organize technology and innovation trajectories in agriculture. This paper contributes to this debate by exploring the question of how value chain interactions are organized for producing, transferring and using knowledge in the Rwandan agricultural sector. Interviews with relevant value chain actors and a review of reports and scientific literature were used to explore this question. Empirical findings show that value chain structural organization can be an entry point to mainstream technology and innovation. However, this requires building synergies and complementarities among actors. Interactive learning among value chain actors is imperative, with the use of both scientific and indigenous knowledge. Linking value chains to innovation systems is one option to explore for maximizing the potential of value chains in integrating technology and innovation in the agricultural sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy statements by the United Nations, the African Union and most African countries boldly pronounce on the anticipated benefits of the internetworked world and associated ICT to society in general and to the world of business specifically. In terms of the latter, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are recognized as being critical to the growth of developing economies. There is consensus that this sector has considerable potential for improved business outcomes through the harnessing of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). However, a problem of low adoption of ICT in this sector still prevails in Africa and there is a gap in our understanding of the reasons for this. In light of this problem, this paper reports on a survey of Ugandan SME owners in which their ICT pre-usage beliefs and attitudes are explored. The study identified four pre-use factors that are correlated with ICT use. The pre-usage beliefs which significantly influence decisions to adopt and use ICT include Benefit expectation, ICT learnability, User-confidence, and User-friendliness. These are found to be key determinants of ICT adoption. ICT support and ease-of-use on the other hand were factors that did not correlate with decisions to use ICT. However, it is found that there is a low predictive capability (17.7%) of pre-usage beliefs and attitudes in respect of prior use or non-use of ICT among SMEs. As such, this study found that other contextual factors constitute a greater (82.3%) predictive percentage. In light of this, the paper concludes by recommending an ICT participatory design process to mitigate ICT pre-use scepticism among SMEs owners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to review the theoretical and empirical perspectives of innovation-diffusion literature. The objective of this paper is to develop a heuristic framework by reviewing the existing studies for analyzing the diffusion of innovation and its outcome in different sectors. The formal theoretical and empirical literature on technology diffusion that emerged in the fifties with the epidemic approach has been followed by a voluminous literature spanning different disciplines. From the different strands of literature on analyzing the process of diffusion, the paper finds that there is considerable heterogeneity within theoretical approaches with respect to the process of diffusion. It seems that innovation and diffusion are a complex process that hinges inter alia upon the nature of innovation, adopters' characteristics, institutional context and that all these vary over the time and space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies have shown that technology transfer is essential for innovation and knowledge diffusion. However, without appropriate policies, technology transfer cannot be successful. This research studied technology transfer and its policies in Korea with the aim to determine whether it contributed to the catching-up of the Korean economy while seeking to prove Schumpeter's theory of innovation. In this study, a mixed methodology that involved the use of a systematic review of literature and an analysis of secondary data was employed. The results show that technology transfer policies are essential to economic growth and income generation of the National Innovation System (NIS) while fostering innovation. In line with this, three key policies were discovered that helped the Korean NIS make an economic catch-up from a developing country to a developed country. These are: Intellectual Property Rights, Foreign Direct Investment, and a third class (which was referred to as the general technology transfer policy) of technology transfer policies. These policies improve technology transfers by establishing free trade zones, giving tax breaks to foreign firms and easing the process of foreign direct investment. Based on these results, a policy structure was developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issue of a low-carbon energy system is contentious especially in developing countries as the world is transiting from a fossil fuel based economy to a low-carbon economy. A new development path of low-carbon energy is being sought so as to prevent the devastating effects of the high-carbon energy system which presently dominates the world. Many developing countries including Nigeria are being faced with the challenges of achieving economic development through a low-carbon energy system because the present energy system is predominantly high-carbon energy dependent, using, for example, fossil fuels. To follow the low-carbon development path, building indigenous innovation capability in emerging and developing countries becomes paramount, instead of relying on a mere technology transfer from developed countries which, most of the time, is in the form of hardware. As a result of the double externality problem and market failures associated with new technological innovation, this study suggests a government policy driven model to achieve the development of sustainable low-carbon energy innovation in Nigeria. The study used descriptive analysis to capture information on the influence of government policy from university academia and members of the public, obtained through a questionnaire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the end of apartheid in 1994, outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) from South Africa has been on the increase. However, the content of South African OFDI has remained an understudied topic. This article explores whether intra-regional flows of FDI from emerging African countries carry environmentally sound technologies (ESTs) to developing African countries. It examines whether and how OFDI from South Africa’s energy sector transfers ESTs to Uganda through a firm-specific case study of Eskom Enterprises and its subsidiary, Eskom Uganda Ltd. It employs secondary data from literature sources and primary data from interviews. The research results indicate that OFDI can be a carrier of ESTs from emerging African countries to developing African countries. The case study demonstrates that OFDI from South Africa’s energy sector has transferred ESTs to Uganda’s energy sector. Explicit firm-specific policies and host-country environmental policies have promoted international standards certification and transfer of ESTs. Therefore, countries and transnational corporations (TNCs) can direct OFDI flows from emerging African countries to the transfer of ESTs, thereby helping to mitigate climate change effects and promote sustainable development. It is recommended that future studies be undertaken to focus on the transmission of ESTs by African TNCs targeting other sectors and countries. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The advancement in agricultural technology frontiers over time has resulted in continuous upward shifts in the production, distribution and consumption of agricultural produce worldwide. Such dramatic shifts in the technology frontier have increased the technology gap between countries and regions because of differences in the physical and institutional environments affecting the adoption of these technologies. The results emanating from effort by African countries in adopting transferred technologies since the twentieth century has yielded little or no result particularly in the agricultural sector. The strong institutional and organisational changes and framework combined with the appropriate transfer and adoption of technologies have increased agricultural productivity and decreased costs. This study is a synthesis of agriculture technology transfer in Africa that, in addition to defining technology transfer, examines the concept of technology transfer, its barriers, opportunities and the needed technology transfer drivers in African agriculture, as well as the processes for effective technology transfer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]