درباره نقش قابلیت مدیریت اتحاد، سازگاری سازمانی و کیفیت تعامل در انتقال فن آوری سازمانی

Interorganizational technology transfer (ITT) is a key component of firms' innovation processes. ITT involves purposeful, goal-oriented interactions between two or more organizations to exchange technological knowledge and/or artifacts and rights. Using the relational view, this study develops and empirically tests a research framework that incorporates key factors of technology transfer success to answer three questions: (1) How do various managerial routines and procedures that as a whole reflect a firm's alliance management capability influence interaction quality in ITT? (2) How does interaction quality in turn influence technology transfer success? (3) Which configurations of organizational and interactional factors contribute to technology transfer success? By examining the causal chain from alliance management capability through interorganizational interaction quality to technology transfer success, this study explains linkages between important antecedents and consequences of interaction quality and thus contributes to a better understanding of the interorganizational exchange processes that determine technology transfer success.

Strategic alliances sometimes evolve as an important means to achieve sustainable competitive advantage. The rate of formation of alliances has increased significantly in the last years and alliances have become prevalent in several industries—particularly in high-technology industries (Rothaermel & Deeds, 2006). Firms' motives for the formation of alliances include factors such as learning from partners, obtaining access to technology and complementary resources, or enhancing innovativeness (Rothaermel & Boeker, 2008). Extant research emphasizes that one of the key activities underlying several types of alliances is the transfer of knowledge and technology between alliance partners (e.g., Mowery et al., 1996 and Oxley and Wada, 2009). Interorganizational technology transfer (ITT) involves purposeful, goal-oriented interactions between two or more organizations to exchange technological knowledge and/or artifacts and rights (Amesse & Cohendet, 2001). ITT represents the mechanism inherent to many forms of interorganizational collaboration, such as outward technology commercialization activities and inward technology acquisition activities (e.g., Lichtenthaler & Ernst, 2007). Thus, ITT reflects the process that occurs when firms decide to collaborate with external partners in order to improve their technological capabilities or when firms decide to exploit their technology expertise. Despite an active ITT strategy, technology transfers often do not meet firms' strategic objectives (Lichtenthaler & Lichtenthaler, 2010). For example, Koza and Lewin (2000) show empirically that approximately 50% of these collaborations do not live up to expectations. Against this background, identification and investigation of drivers of technology transfer success become critical issues for both practitioners and scholars (Lichtenthaler & Lichtenthaler, 2010). Recent calls for further research on technology diffusion in general and technology transfer in particular (e.g., Kim & Huarng, 2011) underscore the need to explore the complex nature of interorganizational exchange processes. To address these issues, using the relational view (Dyer & Singh, 1998), this study develops and empirically tests a research framework that incorporates key factors of technology transfer success. More specifically, this study answers three research questions: (1) How do various managerial routines and procedures that reflect a firm's alliance management capability influence interaction quality in ITT? (2) How does interaction quality influence technology transfer success? (3) Which configurations of organizational and interactional factors contribute to technology transfer success? Using a cross-industrial survey of a sample of key informants from multiple firms that previously participated in ITT, this study examines ITT from the perspective of the technology transferee, that is, the technology-receiving organization, and thus focuses on so-called inbound ITT. This study makes several contributions to the literature. First, by examining the causal chain from alliance management capability through interorganizational interaction quality to technology transfer success, this study explains linkages between important antecedents and consequences of interaction quality, thus contributing to a better understanding of the interorganizational exchange processes that determine technology transfer success. Interaction quality is a summary judgment that refers to the informational and technological exchange processes that occur during technology transfer projects, involving the assessment of the mutual or reciprocal actions between the technology transfer partners. Without any interaction between transfer partners, technology transfer does not take place, and the manner in which transfer partners collaborate affects the desired outcome. Therefore, a deep understanding of management routines that enhance interaction quality and in turn increase technology transfer success is paramount. Using the relational view, this study conceptualizes interorganizational interaction quality as a crucial relation-specific asset (Dyer & Singh, 1998) representing an integral factor in generating relational rents in ITT. Second, by providing empirical evidence that organizational compatibility—a construct repeatedly emphasized as a predictor of alliance performance (e.g., Sarkar, Echambadi, Cavusgil, & Auklah, 2001)—represents a driver of interorganizational interaction quality, this study contributes to a better understanding of how interorganizational similarity facilitates the creation of relational rents from complementary assets. In addition, this study shows that the effect of organizational compatibility on interaction quality can be strengthened when firms have well established alliance management capabilities. Third, by identifying and analyzing configurations of organizational and interactional factors that help achieve technology transfer success, the present study contributes to a better understanding of the complex causal patterns that underlie ITT processes. Recent research emphasizes the need to obtain deeper insight into the mechanisms that underlie the performance effects of alliance management capabilities (Schilke, in press). This study uses fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) as a novel analytic approach to conduct configurational analyses. FsQCA allows researchers to examine so-called complex causation that is a situation “… in which an outcome may follow from several different combinations of causal conditions” (Ragin, 2008, p. 23). Analysis of complex causation entails consideration of all theoretically possible configurations of causal conditions that may influence an outcome in question and thus represents a major methodological challenge (Davis et al., 2007 and Ragin, 2008). The present study demonstrates how fsQCA can be used to identify and analyze combinations of organizational and interactional factors that contribute to technology transfer success and by so doing extends management researchers diagnostic toolkit. From a managerial perspective, the findings can guide managers in selecting appropriate technology transfer partners and help them establish mechanisms to manage interorganizational cooperation successfully.

Using the relational view, this study examines a framework of technology transfer success to expand academic knowledge and providing managerial insights. The results underscore the need to focus on interactions between interorganizational transfer partners as a key to technology transfer success. In determining which factors lead to successful ITT, researchers and managers should take into account the interaction processes between transfer partners, as well as the organizational management routines and procedures that determine the manner in which collaborating firms interact. Researchers should continue to examine the complex role of interaction quality in ITT from additional perspectives and with multiple analytic approaches, such as SEM and fsQCA, to develop a more complete understanding of this concept in interorganizational cooperation.