This thesis aims at investigating the behavioral aspects of importing foreign technologies and analyzing the factors influencing upon the successful adaptation of them.
In this study, the process of importing a foreign technology is divided into four stages : Search stage, Bargaining stage, Assimilation stage and Adaptation stage, and the unit of analysis is project level.
The data are collected through interviews or questionnaires. And they are acquired from 61 technology-transfer projects, 19 from chemical industry and 42 from machine industry. Reliability is examined through item analyses and validity is partially checked by secondary data. Hypotheses are tested by t-test, Kendall's rank order correlation, crosstabulation and multiple discriminant analysis.
The results of this study are as follows:
1) In search stage, personal information sources are more frequently used than impersonal information sources.
2) In bargaining stage, the technology-packagedness is strongly influenced by the technological characteristics such as the technological complexity and maturity. While less matured technologies are imported on restrictive terms, more matured technologies are imported on favorable terms.
3) In assimilation stage, the relative advantage of imported technologies, the appropriateness of the training and the technological capabilities of the recipients are the essential factors for the successful assimilation of foreign technologies.
4) In adaptation stage, the degree of adaptation is largely determined by the technological capabilities, the technological efforts, and the technological complexity.
Further researches with a larger sample size and also with a more elaborated research methodology will be needed to improve the results of this study.
