استفاده از تحلیل سلسله مراتبی برای تعیین عوامل اولویت دار ناملموس برای پذیرش انتقال تکنولوژی

Technology has characteristics of inducing changes under competitive environment due to its dynamic property of being modified and accelerated over time. In order to improve profitability, the evaluation of technology transfer adoption (TTA) is very important for determining the weights of TTA factors, the influence of the organizational factors (i.e., the measures of TTA dimension) such as chief executive officer (CEO)’ mind and capacity, commercialization, and technology licensing office (TLO)’s competence on the profitability of emerging technologies (ET), and the size of these organizational factors in suppler and buyer. This research investigates the important intangible priority factors for the transfer of technology through analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method and correlation analysis. The study is based on three phases: (1) Phase 1: selection of TTA factors and the measures of ET, TTA, and bargaining power (BP) dimension; (2) Phase 2: correlation analysis between the measures of ET and TTA dimension (evaluation of TTA dimension based on the measures of ET); (3) Phase 3: evaluation of TTA dimension based on the measures of BP dimension. The quantitative weights of criteria, TTA factors and sub-factors are provided and they indicate the order of priority and the degree of importance for TTA. The results are interpreted in terms of the ET and BP dimensions of measures that need to be considered in order to provide assistance at the time of decision-making on adoption of technology transfer by companies.

The technology transfer can be defined as the transfer of new knowledge, products or processes from one organization to another for business benefit (Wittamore et al., 1998). Technology transfer projects are often considered as joint R&D activities involving the recipient firm and the university. Technology transfer is the application of information into use, and encompasses a source of technology that possesses specialized technical skills, and the transmission to receptors who do not possess them and who cannot or do not want to create the technology themselves. The complex and dynamic behavior associated with technology transfer business processes combined with the technological risk involved in the participating small firms, has resulted into a lack of business process definition and improvement in this area (McAdam, Keogh, Galbraith, & Laurie, 2005). Technology transfer adoption in South Korea has been displaying trend of continuous increase since the commencement of technology transfer induced by the public announcement of law on the introduction of foreign capital (The South Korean Law, 1962). Technology transfer adoption from public institutions (research institutes and universities) to domestic enterprises has reached 19.6% in 2006. In particular, the production capacity of information technology (IT) industry in Korea was approximately US$ 19.7 billion in 2007, making Korea a global IT power with ranking of fourth in the world, which is led by countries in the order of USA, China, and Japan (The Year Book of World Electronics Data, 2007). Along with such rapid growth, the overall adoption of advanced technology in Korea is increasing by more than 20% per annum. Such increase in adoption of technology transfer is being utilized as one of motive power for enhancing business competitiveness of small and medium venture enterprises in their efforts towards globalization. However, entry barrier into new market is immense for small and medium venture enterprises with insufficient in-house R&D infrastructure. Accordingly, such enterprises are coping to reinforce their competitiveness through adoption of technology transfer. Small and medium enterprises, however, are confronted with limitations at the time of decision making in pursuing adoption of technology including the need to determine the appropriate price for the technology to be purchased due to the limited resources of the enterprise, and the need to assess whether the technology to be purchased is coherent with the management strategy of the company. The key for the success of technology adoption is to assess the proper cost to be paid as technology royalty. It exerts immense influence on cost superiority strategy of the company by acting as factor for the initial cost incurred. Accordingly, rational decision making that induces minimization of burden on initial cost by having the technology transferred from the technology provider at appropriate price is highly important in guaranteeing sustained profit growth. However, there are difficulties for the chief executive officer (CEO)’s of small and medium sized enterprises in determining the core factors and their order of priority in order to make decisions on whether to purchase technology for investment into new business. It is evident that an order of priority has decisive effect on the establishment of management strategy of the company. In order to improve profitability, the evaluation of technology transfer adoption (TTA) is very important for determining the weights of TTA factors, the influence of the organizational factors (i.e., the measures of TTA dimension) such as CEO’ mind and capacity, commercialization, and technology licensing office’s (TLO) competence on the profitability of emerging technologies (ET), and the influence of these organizational factors on bargaining power (BP). This research investigates the important intangible priority factors for the transfer of technology through analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method. The quantitative weights of criteria, TTA factors and sub-factors are provided and they indicate the order of priority and the degree of importance for TTA. Further, it is necessary to suggest the measures of TTA dimension which significantly affect the profitability of ET. Finally the measures of TTA dimension are evaluated in terms of the measures of BP dimension. The size of the measures of TTA dimension is determined in suppler and buyer. The results are interpreted in terms of the ET and BP dimensions of measures that need to be considered in order to provide assistance at the time of decision-making on adoption of technology transfer by companies.

This study intends to find out the preferred intangible TTA factors, and suggest the influence of the measures which need to be considered for TTA in terms of profitability of new technologies and the influence on barraging power. AHP was used in order to determine which factors are important and the degree of importance of factors in terms of three criteria, i.e., capabilities of TLO, technological validity and business feasibility. The results of pair-wise comparison of TTA factors indicate that TTA prioritized factors are in the order of business feasibility (profitability), technological validity, technology licensing office capabilities. The most important criterion is business feasibility and the most important sub-factor for business feasibility is commercialization indicating that productivity, profitability, marketing and working capital funds are critical in buying new technologies. The next critical criterion is technological validity and the most weighted sub-factor for technological validity is technical characteristics encompassing implementation, competitiveness, and application. The correlation analysis between the measures of ET and TTA dimension show in detail that the elements of TTA which need to be considered for the profitability of introducing new technologies. Further, technology buying process can be examined in terms of the influence of various elements of TTA on the BP of buyer and suppler. CEO’s mind and capacity, decision making, and TLO’s administration are critical for the profitability of e-paper. This research examined the qualitative and quantitative factors that cannot be examined financially in terms of three dimensions of measures (ET, TTA, and BP) on the transfer and adoption of technology. The relation between the measures of TTA and BP of the partners (supplier and buyer) at the time of transaction of technology indicate that BP of buyer can exist in terms of CEO’s mind and capacity, TLO’s administration, commercialization and TLO’s competence. The improvement of profitability through purchasing of technology is the most important factor for the CEO of company to adopt technology. In order to commercialize the outstanding technology with high efficiency and at low cost, aforementioned intangible TTA factors and the measures of TTA dimension must be utilized maximally. Additional research on the development of the indices of BP that was not dealt with in this study is necessary in the future.