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The transfer of vocational education and training (VET) systems is currently the subject of lively international debate, but there has so far been very little documentation of the process or analysis of how such transfers are achieved in practical terms. This paper therefore considers the potential for transferring Germany's "dual" vocational training system to German subsidiaries abroad, specifically in China, India, Japan and the USA. Using the EPRG typology as a theoretical framework, the paper systematises the range of training strategies deployed by German subsidiaries. It analyses the findings of interviews with training officers and Directors of Human Resources in more than 40 German subsidiaries abroad. These interviews show clearly that local factors in the host country exert such a strong influence that it is not possible completely to transfer the German VET system to another country. What is more likely is that an accommodation is reached with local VET structures, local labour market conditions and other socio-cultural features. The findings suggest that policy borrowing in the area of VET is likely to be only partial and will be strongly influenced by the national characteristics of the host country.

The role of the university in society and the economy is evolving. Universities produce knowledge that promotes technological developments, which are, in turn, critical to economic growth and competitiveness in the global economy. Therefore, it is increasingly expected that universities become more entrepreneurial and assume this third mission in order to promote innovation and development through the provision of technologies and business ventures. Drawing on data collected for The Changing Academic Profession Project--a comparative survey of the academic profession carried out in 19 countries from all over the world--this article explores Portuguese academic entrepreneurship engagement based on the involvement in the process of technology transfer as an activity performed in the context of research activities. It thus aims to contribute to knowledge about academics' engagement in entrepreneurial activity. Results from this study suggest that Portuguese academics are fairly involved in entrepreneurial activities and that there is an overall positive attitude towards application of research to real problems. Furthermore, it was possible to see that academics involved in processes of technology transfer are not only focused on activities such as research but also service to the outside community. However, when comparing academics involved and not involved in entrepreneurial activities, several significant differences are found in their attitudes, perceptions and behaviours.

Following a pause, with a relatively flat rate, from 1998 to 2008, the long-term trend of university patenting rising as a share of all patenting has resumed, driven by the internationalization of academic entrepreneurship and the persistence of US university technology transfer. The authors disaggregate this recent growth in university patenting at the US Patent and Trademark Organization (USPTO) in terms of nations and patent classes. Foreign patenting in the United States almost doubled during the period 2009-2014, mainly due to patenting by universities in Taiwan, Korea, China and Japan. These nations compete with the United States in terms of patent portfolios, whereas most European countries--with the exception of the United Kingdom--have more specific portfolios, mainly in biomedical fields. In the case of China, Tsinghua University holds 63% of the university patents in USPTO; followed by King Fahd University with 55.2% of the national portfolio.

The Entrepreneurial University is a failed idea. This is not to disparage the entrepreneurial activities of faculty, graduates and students. Neither is it to criticise industry-sponsored research and co-authorship. University research and higher education have a role in innovation. However, if entrepreneurialism is institutionalised as a policy of governments and universities, all manner of things start to go wrong. Not only do participants suffer from disappointed expectations, as expected returns fail to materialise, but also, more importantly, universities that "go entrepreneurial" ultimately destroy the science commons essential to the university's continued existence. A systematic critique of the concept of the Entrepreneurial University is offered and key data is reviewed. Simultaneously, a broader research programme on university autonomy and finance is advanced. (Contains 5 notes.)

The author argues that there is an ongoing debate among educators concerning the extent to which American educators can learn from East Asian school systems. Some social scientists argue that cultural differences make this impossible. Others argue that there are many ways that Americans can benefit. The author believes that both sides of this debate have a point. He therefore encourages educators to take a middle road. Learning from East Asian education systems is somewhat facilitated because in a number of respects, they were strongly and deliberately modeled after the Western educational rubric. Americans, in particular, were often at the forefront of developing East Asian education systems from the 1870s to the 1950s. However, there are cultural differences that limit the extent to which the United States can transfer various aspects of the East Asian rubrics. Therefore, the author provides guidance on what that middle road might be.

National technology development initiatives in Japan and Europe are playing an increasingly important role in many fields of research. Such heightened international activity suggests a need for a more global perspective on research administration, and raises many questions for the United States' research community and science and technology policy. (Author/MSE)

This paper explores the trajectories of the development and institutionalization of technology transfer structures and activities in Israel and Japan, two countries with strong science and technology sectors, from the 1950s to the present. We examine the local arrangements that existed before the introduction of the U.S. model in the 1980s and 90s, and how the Japanese and Israeli schemes of technology transfer evolved under the combination of local practices and U.S. influence. Drawing on new institutional theory's concept of loose coupling, we identify different types of loose coupling between formal structures and practices in Israeli and Japanese fields of technology transfer before and after the introduction of U.S. model. Our analysis show that the new configurations in the two countries are best analyzed by looking at two factors: (1) The perceived efficacy of the local, previous technology transfer arrangements, and; (2) the gap between the local arrangement and the U.S. technology transfer model. In the Israeli case, the former technology transfer model was similar to the one in the U.S.—however, it was perceived as potentially ineffective and thus disputable. In the Japanese case, the former technology transfer model was seen as effective and largely uncontested. The introduction of the U.S. formal model with the university ownership of patents disrupted the informal technology transfer mechanisms in Japan. These historical trajectories explain why, on one hand, Israeli science community was quick to adopt to the U.S. model but contested its efficacy and legitimacy, and on the other hand, the Japanese science community modified the U.S. model through negotiating conditions that were as favorable to firms than universities as their previous mode of technology transfer. Through these cases, we show how loose coupling in each field developed and changed in response to global and local policies. We argue that attention to the local dynamics of loose coupling can help explain local variations in the global diffusion of the American style of technology transfer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to advance a model able to explain the synchronization tendency in energy consumption, under the impact of international technology transfers. The key argument is related to the differences in energy consumption efficiency of local and foreign technologies. One direct testable consequence of the model is that there might be a certain correlation between the energy consumption between countries and/or economic areas where a free movement of capital goods and technologies takes place. Hence, it is further tested, in the framework of a multivariate spectrum analysis, the case of energy consumption synchronization between Europe and, respectively, United States and Japan for a time span between 1981 and 2011 based on the data provided by U.S. Energy Information Administration. There are evidences of a leading behavior of energy consumption in United States and Japan in respect to Europe as well as of short-run phase delays of 2 up to 5 months. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emigration of scientists facilitates the formation of international networks. However, are ties in such networks maintained after the scientists return to their respective home countries? Using data from the Web of Science, this paper analyzes whether Japanese migrant scientists returning from the US maintain the collaborative research network ties that they formed during their stay in the US and, if so, what features of these ties contribute to maintaining these relationships. The geographical distance between the US and Japan can impede the transfer of knowledge that is transmitted most effectively through face-to-face interactions. However, social proximity may compensate for geographical distance. Accordingly, the ties that Japanese scientists have formed with other Japanese scientists living in the US are more likely to be maintained than the ties that they have formed with scientists of different ethnicities. Social proximity was also measured by past experiences in collaborative research. The ties to scientists with whom Japanese scientists collaborated more frequently or co-produced papers with higher citation counts are more likely to be maintained after the scientists return to Japan. When collaborative research of American and Japanese scientists is worthwhile, they obtain mutual benefits through a 'give and take' in which they compensate for one partner's lack of knowledge by the other partner's knowledge. In a research field with which the developmental gap between the US and Japan is great, ties are less likely to be maintained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the pattern of knowledge flows as indicated by the patent citations in three areas: USA, Japan and Europe. In each economic area, we use information from United States Patent and Trademarks Office data to assess empirically the impact of the technological and geographical proximities for 530 international firms. In particular, the contribution to the existing literature is twofold: first, we use an international sample in such a way that we may compare the empirical results among different economic markets; second, we extend the analysis of the determinants of knowledge spillovers, taking into account the time dimension of the effects of the proximities. In order to compute the technological proximity, we follow the methodology developed by A.B. Jaffe (1986. Technological opportunity and spillovers of R&D: Evidence from firms' patents, profits and market value. American Economic Review 76, no. 5: 984-1001), where a technological vector is based on the distribution of patents of each firm across technology classes. As far as the geographic proximity is concerned, we use the latitude and the longitude coordinates of the city in which each firm is situated to obtain the distance, in miles, between the firms. The empirical results, in line with results from previous studies, indicate that there is a statistically significant relationship between the knowledge flows, proxied by the patent citations, and the proximities, but the effects are rather differentiated according to the proximity type. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the latter 20th century, there occurred three oil crises in the world, which inflicts a great impact on the world economy. From 2002 until now, oil price is soaring up, and the 4th oil crisis is rementioned. By a rational judgment of the conditions for oil crisis, it is proposed that the current conditions can not lead to oil crisis, but people should be well-prepared forit. On the basis of the precautions adopted by Japan and America, it is put forward that China should borrow foreign countries' experience and adopt some corresponding measures to meet the challenge of the oil crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Using patent data from the United States, Japan, and Germany, this paper examines both innovation and diffusion of air pollution control equipment. Whereas the United States was an early adopter of stringent sulfur dioxide (SO2) standards, both Japan and Germany introduced stringent nitrogen dioxide (NO X ) standards much earlier than the US. Nonetheless, in both cases, tightened standards in the US led to more domestic patenting, but not more foreign patenting. Overall, the data suggest that inventors respond to environmental regulatory pressure in their own country, but not to foreign environmental regulations. Moreover, any technology transfer that occurs appears to be indirect. Domestic innovation occurs even for technologies that have already experienced significant innovative activity abroad and utilities purchase pollution abatement equipment from domestic firms. However, patent citation data from the US do show that earlier foreign patents are an important building block for NO X pollution control innovations in the US. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Analyzes the legal and institutional framework of the Japanese technology-transfer system. Mechanisms of cooperation and technology transfer in the U.S. and Japan; Information on U.S. government research institutes; Background on Japanese universities; Emergence of university-affiliated technology-transfer organizations.

Previous studies have found that importing goods from R&D-intensive countries raises a country's productivity. In this paper, we investigate econometrically whether foreign direct investment (FDI) also transfers technology across borders. The data indicates that FDI transfers technology, but only in one direction: a country's productivity is increased if it invests in R&D-intensive foreign countries—particularly in recent years—but not if foreign R&D-intensive countries invest in it. Other findings of the paper are that the ratio of foreign-R&D benefits conveyed by outward FDI to foreign R&D benefits conveyed by imports is higher for large countries than it is for small ones, that failure to account for international R&D spillovers leads to upwardly biased estimates of the output elasticity of the domestic R&D capital stock, and that there are much larger transfers of technology from the United States to Japan than there are from Japan to the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]