From Adoption to Innovation : The Dynamics of Indian Knowledge Firms’ Technology Learning

It is critical that technology recipients have the prerequisite knowledge and scientific base to best exploit the information. This includes domestic private and public research laboratories and universities, in addition to a sound basis of technical skills and human capital. Each of these may help to reduce the costs of imitation, adaption, and follow-on innovation. Technology transfer is enhanced by stronger levels of patent protection, while acknowledging the necessity of complementary factors such as infrastructure, effective government policies and regulations, knowledge institutions, access to credit and venture capital, skilled human capital, and networks for research collaboration. It is essential to consider the skills required for continued use and repair of new technologies at the onset of adoption. This study reveals that it is a combination of market, regulatory and cultural conditions that contribute to the arena in which dissemination and adoption of technologies take place. Fundamentally for technology transfer to take place in developing nations such as India a number of obstacles must be overcome: uncertainty surrounding the costs and benefits of adoption, asymmetric information on the value of the innovation, financial and skill requirements, externalities, and regulatory barriers. While scholars are still exploring why, where and how adoption takes place, lessons learned indicate that policymakers should seek to reduce uncertainty and foster transparency as they pursue dissemination to developing nations. The five case studies are interesting direction in this context