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Technology Transfer Track
Technology transfer, as the
term is commonly used, describes the process of moving high-tech innovations
from laboratories to markets. Activities encompassed by the term include
innovation and research; patents, licenses, and copyrights; product
engineering; entrepreneurship (venture capital, start-ups, etc.); and
manufacturing and marketing. But while technology transfer is all this, it
also involves much more Technology transfer encompasses at least three
dimensions – the product, the people, and the institutions within which
those people work and the products emerge and are adapted. “Product”
spans the spectrum from concept through realization, dissemination and
adoption. And it includes the “hard” technologies (things) as well as
“soft” technologies such as information systems, industrial processes and
management reforms. “People” includes the spectrum of human endeavor,
ranging from engineers, designers, and scientists to managers, consultants,
team members, entrepreneurs, and organizational employees. But the term
also encompasses those individuals on the receiving end of transfers –
often in nations outside the western cultures where most technologies
emerge. One of our starting assumptions is that the people matter every bit
as much, if not more, than the product. Attention to “Institutions”
broadens the perspective to include not only the business corporations and
universities where technology transfers originate, but also government
entities at various levels, non-governmental organizations such as the World
Bank or International Monetary Fund, and other groups, such as labor and
social organizations that are involved in the process of moving or
receiving technology.
The track proposes to offer
analytical essays and articles that focus on the range of social factors
that form the context within which this process takes place. These include:
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Social: language; education; ethnicity,
gender and race; openness (social mobility; immigration, individual
freedoms), environmental regulation and pollution, history, attitudes
toward risk |
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Political: regime stability, government
capacity, administrative transparency and effectiveness, political
culture, administrative formalism and corruption, regulatory and tax
incentives |
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Economic: balance and focus of
economic development, export-import orientation, human resource
development and training, unemployment or under-employment |
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Legal: criminal and civil law,
regulatory environment, contract compliance and enforcement, patents and
intellectual property rights. |
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Business: success factors that examine
the issues that sustain long-term creative development of technology and
reception in the marketplace. |
The track intends to examine
failures as well as success, and non-western, less-developed nations
viewpoints as well as the traditional western perspective. We aim to avoid
placing technology, or the transfer process itself, inside a “black
box”. This decision to focus on people and social factors does not remove
the product or its most immediate context in universities, government labs,
and business firms as a crucial topics of study. Thus we will seek articles
that are sensitive to the technical issues and to the business dimensions,
but in the traditional sense of analytical social science essays that take
the process, the people, and the institutions as the subject of inquiry.
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Editorial Criteria:
We solicit articles on all aspects of technology transfer. We are
particularly interested in multidisciplinary research or case studies that
focus on the process of technology transfer or innovation adoption. To be
considered, works should be readable by a broad audience, including
informed researchers and practitioners outside the particular discipline.
Possible topics include:
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Knowledge management
(intra-organizational TT) |
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Transfer of Information
Technology |
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IT Infrastructure
support of Technology Transfer |
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Diffusion of IT |
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Organizational structure
and culture for TT |
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Organizational
procedures for TT |
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Critical success factors
for TT |
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TT and economic
development |
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History of TT |
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Legal and regulatory
issues related to TT |
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Role of government and
NGOs in TT |
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Culture, language and TT |
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Globalization and TT |
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Biomedical TT |
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Papers to this track will
be considered for fast track publication in the Johns Hopkins University
Press journal “Comparative Technology Transfer and Society”. To receive
fasttrack consideration, the paper must be submitted early, by December
10, 2002.
Papers accepted for the
Technology Transfer Track will automatically appear in the BIS 2003
proceedings and considered for publication in the Journal of Comparative
Technology Transfer and Society.
Any questions regarding
content and focus of papers submitted to this track should be directed to
Gary Klein at gklein@uccs.edu. All submissions and questions of submission
status are made through the regular process.
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