Systemic absorptive capacity and international technology transfer

摘要

This thesis presents an exploratory study aiming to tackle the issue of technology transfer, focusing on international technology transfer (ITT) between partners that possess contrasting strengths and capabilities. The case of the Korean-Russian technology transfers provides a particularly illuminating example of this situation. Most ITT has been largely limited to the triad countries and some latecomer economies in East Asia. I interpret these empirical results based on the assumptions that the basis for ITT is the technological compatibility and socio-economic proximity the countries share, plus the recipient's capability to exploit and absorb external knowledge. Korea and Russia, having had no interaction during the Cold War period, seem to have shared few or no such conditions. However, some of the Korean firms have achieved considerable success in their exploitation of Russian technologies. Did this take place by accident? Or did those Korean firms, in successfully adapting Russian technologies, have an extraordinary capability to overcome all the obstacles and conditions? Or were there any mechanisms or special factors involved in bridging the Korean-Russian gaps? Such questions are answered by a mixed approach of survey, interviews, and case studies along with document analysis of supplementary materials that were provided by interviewees. The empirical results show that public programs developed by the Korean governments to assist Korean firms' exploitation of Russian technologies have play a critical role in enabling successful ITT. Such public programs have created the capacity to bridge the gaps involved in adapting Russian technologies. I suggest a model called systemic absorptive capacity (SAC) as a way to explain this empirical result and define as "institutional potential generated by the dynamic process of NSIs that enhance local firms' systems in their ability to absorb external knowledge". The dynamic process includes the systemic linkage and dynamic interplay between public and private sectors guided by public policies in the process of technology acquisition and absorption.