Herbert Endres

ORGANISATIONAL CAPABILITIES FOR TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER: A STUDY OF R&D-INTENSIVE FIRMS IN GERMANY

This paper empirically investigates the performance effects of organisational capabilities for technology transfers, i.e., external technology acquisition and commercialisation, as well as the effect of cross-functional integration of departments involved in technology transfers. We study large, German R&D-intensive companies from the machinery, chemical/pharmaceutical, and electronic and semiconductor industries. Identification and realisation were identified as the two major capabilities required for both external technology acquisition and commercialisation. We found that the respective capabilities for technology transfer realisation have a significant positive effect on technology transfer performance, but the capabilities to identify technology transfer opportunities do not. There is no significant effect from organisational capabilities for external technology acquisition on outward technology transfer performance and vice versa. For cross-functional integration, a significant effect was only found for informal integration on external technology acquisition performance.