The transfer of Federal technology and the community college

The State of Ohio has developed a transfer mechanism using its technical and community colleges. A pilot program began in 1979. The program includes eleven of the State's technical and community colleges and the Ohio State University acting as program manager. This paper reports on a program which is a cooperative effort with the Federal Laboratory Consortium that represents some 200 Federal laboratories and the Ohio technical and community college network. The role of the Ohio Technology Transfer Organization (OTTO) is explained and Federal Laboratory Consortium demonstration projects are discussed.     

Just the Fax: Federal Express meets the information age-Lessons learned in technology transfer

On July 2, 1984, the first ZapMail message was sent from Federal Express chairman Frederick W. Smith to six members of FedEx's corporate board of directors in separate cities across the country (Zemke 1986). It worked. However, by late September 1986, after suffering over $300 million in operating losses, Federal Express decided it didn't (Keller and Wilson 1986). Why? This postmortem of ZapMail draws on management and innovation theory and research, as well as historical accounts of communication technology development and market conditions from 1984 through 1986, to analyze the failure of FedEx's once-promising electronic delivery service. An analysis of the fax market in 1995 and FedEx's subsequent successful adoption of information technologies conclude this paper.     

Meeting state and local government needs by transfer of Federal laboratory technology

The need of State and local governments to deal with an increasing range of technological problems has led to the development of relatively new ways to call on Federal laboratories. This paper discusses the structure of these mechanisms for technology transfer, organizations involved in the systems that have developed, trends that affect these organizations and current problem areas.     

Teaching technology decision making for product design and development: A university course on technology assessment and technology transfer

Engineers deploy their skills in contexts that require decisions based on certain criteria and on an understanding of processes that were not learned in college. This paper explores how these supplemental, “contextual” skills may be taught and reports on an experimental, fairly successful upper-division course at Pennsylvania State University in the fall of 1995.     

BodyShock: A technology transfer case study

This case study presents a test of a technology transfer model developed by Karl Dakin of The Denver Technology Exchange Corporation. The model involves the creation of a new business organization dedicated solely to completing the transfer of a technology to a single application. In this case, the technology is the BodyShock, developed by Jim Hartway with JH Design, Inc., of Littleton, Colorado.     

Regulation of technology transfer: The Mexican experience

Beginning some 20 years ago, regulation of technology transfer became common-place in a number of developing countries. Whether such regulation could prove beneficial was often questioned, particularly in the industrialized world. But with a 15–20 year history to study, we can now look at the impact that regulation has had. Mexico presents a good case study, as its original law was one of the earliest, and the country's political continuity has led to a detectable evolvement of the technology-transfer process that allows analysis of various factors over time.     

Measuring technology transfer performance: A case study

The debate continues on how to measure results of technology transfer. New and revised models are being conceived and tested in various economic settings. This paper addresses the performance measures that are being derived from the Huntsville/Madison County Chamber of Commerce technology transfer program.     

Evaluation technology transfer: Some problems and solutions

Evaluation of technology transfer is an important part of the total transfer process. Sound results require a practical approach, which avoids use of the research model. The evaluation process is often expensive and time consuming. However, good evaluation will improve:motivation,knowledge,decisions, andaccountability. Evaluation must be based on use of reliable data. Technology transfer evaluation data can be classified — based on accuracy — aslow,medium, orhigh order — data. Evaluation problems can be designated — according to origin — as being related tonew information,human elements, orinstitutional structure. In each area, the more common evaluation problems can be solved with careful attention to detail. Technology transfer evaluation can be a complicated, but rewarding process. There is nosingle, correct way for Technology Transfer evaluation, but rather there is a wide variety of techniques which all have merit, depending on local circumstances.     

Random transfer of technology: An unexplored phenomenon

Technology transfer can take place in a wide variety of ways and at many levels. Nonetheless, the topic of technology transfer between countries has hitherto dealt mainly with planned transfers, particularly from developed countries to either developing countries or less-developed countries. This discussion first points out that technology transfer is not confined to the above dyads; it then, more importantly, broadens the horizons of such transfers by touching on and elucidating the phenomenon of random transfer of technology. In the process, it focuses on an important source of random technology transfer; namely, foreign students studying in the U.S. Rajan Nataraajan is Assistant Professor of marketing at Auburn University and Executive Editor ofPsychology & Marketing, a scholarly journal that focuses on the psychological aspects of marketing phenomena. His current research interests are consumer psychology, quantitative aspects of marketing, and international marketing.     

Volunteerism and technology transfer: A case study

The withdrawl of Federal funds in a number of social service programs and state and local government budgets calls for an upsurge in volunteerism. Since August 1978, a Technical Volunteer Service (TVS) has been doing just that at one of the nation’s largest Federal laboratories. As measured by service to the community, acceptance by laboratory management, and satisfaction for the volunteers, this program has been an outstanding success. The time is ripe to transfer this program to other Federal laboratories, universities and industry. This paper describes the program and offers practical suggestions for its transfer to other organizations.     

The pilot technology access program: A federal experiment in technology transfer

In 1990, Congress authorized the creation of a pilot Technology Access Program (TAP), to be administered jointly by the Small Business Administration and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. TAP, modelled substantially on a Minnesota state program, will subsidize access by small businesses to [1] a network of several thousand peer-recommended technical experts across the country and [2] interactive searching of technical and business literature databases. Preliminary evidence, from two surveys of random samples of companies that subscribe to the Minnesota service, indicate that this form of technology transfer is effective and could have a substantial positive impact on the productivity of small companies. If the pilot TAP program is successful, it could serve as the basis for a national technical-extension service.     

Models of university technology transfer: analyses and policies

Recent data on European countries show that innovation leaders perform better than economies with low levels of innovation investment and institutions that do not favor knowledge and technology transfer activities. This result confirms that to achieve a high level of performance, countries need a balanced innovation system performing well across all dimensions. More interestingly, the two most important indicators that have been driving increases in performance include new doctoral graduates and international scientific co-publications, that is, two channels of knowledge transfer from universities to firms. This special issue of the Journal of Technology Transfer is dedicated to the discussion of models of university technology transfer, mostly from a European perspective.     

Factors influencing technology transfer: The case of China

Transferring and utilizing technology in developing economies is a vital issue for economic growth. Often the separation between R&D institutes and industrial concerns limits the transfer of technology. The People's Republic of China, which has conducted R&D in institutes separate from the potential user firms, has recently moved to facilitate domestic technology transfer from R&D institutes to R&D consumers. This study, based on the statistical analysis of 60 R&D institutes in the machinery sector in China, found that, while R&D intensity improves transfer of technology, funding and employee mobility hinders transfer. His special area is in science and technology policy. He had worked for the State Science and Technology Commission of China for six years before he came to the US.     

Modernizing federal technology transfer metrics

The Journal of Technology Transfer - Nearly 40 years ago Congress laid the foundation for federal agencies to engage in technology transfer activities with a primary goal to make federal...     

Cognitive mapping in technology transfer

Frequent tensions continue to plague the operations of multinational corporations (MNCs) in less-developed countries (LDCs). Accusations of insensitivity and heed-lessness toward the needs and aspirations of LDCs are commonplace. In this writer's opinion, negative perceptions of the MNCs' operations result in part from differing “world views” between the two groups that are frequently overlooked in strategy formulation. This paper is an attempt to demonstrate that productive, culturally sensitive strategies can be formulated if MNCs use a multiple-perspective approach in their relationships with LDCs. To illustrate this, cognitive mapping is used to analyze the MNCs' decisionmaking behavior. Use of this process should provide MNCs with an opportunity to evaluate the consequences of their actions, the prospect of more effective strategies emerges.