The Impact of Globalization on India's Technology Regime : A Quantitative Exploration of India's Organized Manufacturing Industries

The concept of ‘technology regime', featured by technological opportunity, appropriability of technology, cumulativeness of knowledge and properties of knowledge base, has become immanent in the process of the manufacturing sector undergoing changes in its nature of organization and process of production as a sequel to the globalization of information, knowledge and technology. Liberalization of the Indian economy has put up challenges before its manufacturing sector to reap the opportunities of new technology and knowledge becoming available by the entry of Multinational Companies (MNCs) and increasing volume of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) flowing into the economy. The present paper, on the basis of data collected from the Capitaline Corporate Database for the 14 manufacturing industries of India, for the period from 1996-2009 attempts to discern how far and to what extent the expenditure on R&D by these industries is influenced by the various factors, since R&D appears to be a better measure for technological innovation, acquisition and adoption. The results of log-linear model and multiple regression analysis indicate that though liberalization has widened the scope of importing technology and exports of goods, industries in India have taken little advantage of this