ABSTRACT
According to the literature on international technology transfer, the lack of absorptive capacity in the host country is one common explanation for failure in the transfer of technology. Thus, according to this body of literature, absorptive capacity is a crucial prerequisite for a country to assimilate foreign technology. Robinson defines a country’s absorptive capacity as “that situation in which the country’s local people have already mastered the relevant skills, which is the result of large and long-standing social investment in education and training” (1987, p.67). Based on the previous definitions, for operational purposes this study defines absorptive capacity as the availability of the relevant skills and of the scientific and technological capacities in the region. This chapter includes the analysis of the local supply and demand of human resources in engineering fields as they are required by the electronics industry and provided by academic institutions in Jalisco, describing the extent to which the relevant skills are available in terms of quantity and quality. It is divided into three sections. The first will illustrate the evolution of engineering education offered in the local area. The corresponding number of graduates from those engineering fields under study will be explored in the second section. The third section will compare the number of graduates in these fields to the demand, and also consider their quality.
