Estimating the intangibles: A cultural compatibility assessment model for technology transfer.

摘要

Technology transfer is an interdisciplinary and multivariate study of how innovations are introduced into a society. While the United States is the most creative of societies and is renowned for its fundamental scientific research, it is not the fastest when it comes to converting research results into commercially viable products. There is a general lack of understanding as to how one effectively transfuses a technology into a social group. Culture has been aggregated as an intangible that is recognized but not systematically assessed for international technology transfer situations involving countries whose historical and social traditions are different.;This dissertation presents a comprehensive and systematic approach for assessing the interaction between an incoming technology and a host society. It creates a matrix which has technology attributes organized along vertical columns and cultural variables organized along horizontal rows. Technology attributes include participant capability, infrastructure aspects as well as the financial, business, legal, environmental, social and political aspects of the new technology. Cultural variables are organized into four overlapping categories: artifacts, behavior, shared assumptions and beliefs.;The intersection of a cultural variable and a technology attribute is called a cell which is characterized by four numerical scores: one each for cultural reactivity, cultural depth, probability of intersection and the fourth which is a product (multiplication) of the other three and represents an overall rating or score for the interaction.;One Cultural Assessment Matrix is completed by the technology provider and an independent one completed by the technology adopter during the technology transfer planning, implementation and review stages. This helps in overcoming the pro-technology and donor bias and helps communication by fostering cultural empathy in the technology provider and technology appreciation in the technology adopter.;The method is not restricted to any culture, technology, organizational, political or geographic setting. It can be applied to technology transfer within an organization, between organizations and between countries.