ABSTRACT
There is wide agreement that international technology transfer (ITT) is important for economic development and that governments should foster ITT through appropriate policies (Kokko and Blomström, 1995; Hoekman et al., 2005; Ivarsson ampentity Alvstam, 2005; Carlsson, 2006; Kohpaiboon, 2006). Hoekman et al., (2005) recently analysed the policy options that governments have to encourage ITT and proposed a ‘rule-of-thumb’ typology of those options with suggestions as to when they can be most appropriately applied. Examples of policy interventions include direct support for local RampentityD activity, enforcement of a TRIPS-consistent intellectual property regime, and support for locals to travel overseas to acquire technical education of a high international standard. Although articles such as Hoekman et al’s (2005) indicate that there is a generally accepted inventory of policies for governments to draw upon, and some understanding of how effective they are under varying circumstances, there is still significant work to be done in understanding extant policy options and in developing new ones. For example, Ivarsson and Alvstam argue, on the basis of their empirical work, that an evolutionary economics perspective provides insight as to how ITT to local suppliers in a developing country can be increased despite the use of follow-source suppliers by transnational corporations (TNCs). In another example, Kokko and Blomstrom (1995) discuss the relative merits of policies that make use of market forces and those which involve direct intervention. Kohpaiboon (2006) argues for the complementary roles of liberalized foreign investment and liberalized trade policy regimes in stimulating ITT. Although many of the effective policy options currently in use are based upon economic models, it seems likely that other sources of ideas will also be fruitful. For example, Ivarsson and Alvstam (2005) reported the importance of long-term relationship building in technology transfer to local suppliers in the motor vehicle business. The need for fresh approaches to policy options is signalled by recent transformations in global innovation systems (Carlsson, 2006). In particular, the rise of global production networks and the ‘network flagship’ model of doing international business is radically altering the processes of knowledge diffusion and local capability formation and, therefore, the fundamentals of ITT (Ernst, 2002; Ernst ampentity Kim, 2002).
