Exploring the Antecedents of the Pace of Learning from In-Licensed Technology in Developing Countries

This paper examines the speed and its determinants of technological learning of licensing firms in developing countries. There is a wealth of research on technological learning in developing countries, but few scholars have clearly addressed the issue learning time in an empirical way. This paper is to fill this void by an empirical investigation of how long it takes for Chinese firms to learn from the technologies they licensed-in in the past. We furthermore analyzed in detail the antecedents leading to an acceleration or deceleration the learning process among Chinese licensees. The results of the event history analysis indicate that recipient firms take on average 5.8 years to learn from their in-licensing technologies. The absorptive capacity and firm age of the licensees, the technology licensing scale, licensed technology age, and technological capability of the licensor firm all play a role in shortening learning time