International and Intra-national Technology Spillovers and Technology Development Paths in Developing Countries: The Case of China

This paper analyses the paths of technology development among regions with heterogeneous economic and technological characteristics, focusing on the case of China. It finds that intra-national technology transfer, that is, the technology transfer from technologically advanced provinces to less advanced ones, is more important than that taking place through FDI in the backward regions. In technologically advanced areas, learning by doing, indigenous R&D and technology transfer from FDI all play a significant role in technical progress. The relationship between the strength of interprovincial technology transfer and technological distance is U-shaped, with the technology threshold falling outside the upper bound of technology distance. This suggests that technology transfer takes place more effectively when technological distance is small. The paper finds that learning by doing and R&D are important internal routes to technical progress. R&D plays a key role in the assimilation of foreign technologies, whereas learning by doing is relevant for the absorption of interprovincial technology transfers.FDI, technology spillovers, technology threshold

Listening to the World Improves Speech Command Recognition

We study transfer learning in convolutional network architectures applied to the task of recognizing audio, such as environmental sound events and speech commands. Our key finding is that not only is it possible to transfer representations from an unrelated task like environmental sound classification to a voice-focused task like speech command recognition, but also that doing so improves accuracies significantly. We also investigate the effect of increased model capacity for transfer learning audio, by first validating known results from the field of Computer Vision of achieving better accuracies with increasingly deeper networks on two audio datasets: UrbanSound8k and the newly released Google Speech Commands dataset. Then we propose a simple multiscale input representation using dilated convolutions and show that it is able to aggregate larger contexts and increase classification performance. Further, the models trained using a combination of transfer learning and multiscale input representations need only 40% of the training data to achieve similar accuracies as a freshly trained model with 100% of the training data. Finally, we demonstrate a positive interaction effect for the multiscale input and transfer learning, making a case for the joint application of the two techniques.Comment: 8 page

Technology Acquisition among Asian Firms and Technology Clusters in the United States

This paper examines the nature of reverse technology transfer between Asian firms and their subsidiaries in the United States (US). Traditional models of technology transfer suggest that industrializing Asian firms access international technology and knowledge through local spillovers from the activities of foreign firms located in Asia. In this research, we propose a new model of technology development where Asian subsidiaries locate in targeted geographical areas in the US with the objective of acquiring both tacit and codifiable knowledge. Acquisition patterns involve a combination of interactions between suppliers and customers, and, human resource dynamics in the US. Industrial prototypes and knowledge are then transferred back to parent firms in Asia. This pattern of technology development among industrializing Asian firms suggests that a category of subsidiaries is emerging that plays a far more developmental role than the literature currently acknowledges. It also points to shifts in firm strategy in terms of international patterns of technology transfer from learning-by-doing to learning-by-interacting.

Organizational Capital and the International Co-movement of Investment

A productivity shock leads to a large international transfer of capital and negative co-movement of investment in the typical two-country real business cycle model. Most recent models that attempt to reduce or remove this transfer produce unrealistically low investment volatility. We show that adding organizational capital to the technological environment of a relatively standard international business cycle model can ameliorate this problem. In addition we show that GHH preferences along with the above modification are sufficient to deliver positive cross-country correlations of consumption, hours, output and investment.International RBC; learning by doing; organizational capital; cross-country correlations; investment

Managing Expatriation, Repatriation and Organisational Learning in MNCs: an Integrative Framework

In the expanding global economy knowledge has became one of the most strategically-significant resource, so that firms’ competitive advantage depends, more and more, on their ability to create, transfer and protect knowledge asset. Since very few firms are able to develop a wide range of knowledge internally, expatriation and repatriation may be considered as important sources of competitive advantage, thanks to the huge amount of knowledge, both tacit and explicit, that corporate may acquire by managing the cycle. Prior researches mainly investigated the intra-organisational knowledge transfer – from headquarter to subsidiaries – allowed by the expatriates. Very few studies, on the contrary, focused on the “reverse” process – from the subsidiaries to headquarter. According to this, we aim at deeply investigate the conditions upon which intra-organisational knowledge transfer may occur, and corporate learning process may be fostered, as well. In doing so, we focus on the entire expatriate-repatriate cycle, assuming that the effectiveness of knowledge transfer depend on the way the whole process is managed. An integrative theoretical model will be finally suggested, and recommendations for further researches will be proposed.multinational; expatriation; repatriation; knowledge transfer; organisational learning.

Placemaking for Cities : Pilot project on the transfer of good practice in community-led placemaking

This report provides an account of the main outcomes of Placemaking 4 Cities (P4C) project and offers critical evaluation of process as well as content of this pilot project in good practice transfer (GPT). In doing so this report draws together detailed descriptions and assessments of the transfer process from learning logs, the mid-term review and exit interviews with P4C participants. The learning logs and the mid-term review are attached in a separate appendix entitled ‘Supporting Documents’. The first part of the report is concerned with an analysis of the results that were achieved. It begins with a presentation of the good practices and anticipated outcomes defined in the baseline study and compares these to the actual results and outputs achieved. The good practices that were adopted and adapted through the transfer are presented at the end of this section. We then review the methodological approach that was adopted to facilitate the GPT, focusing in particular the preparation and executing of the peer review which was central to the transfer process. This is followed by an attempt to assess the impact of the P4C pilot for participating cities of the medium and longer term and the report concludes with a number of recommendations about the design and delivery of future GPT networks.Final Published versio

The leadership knowing-doing gap: a phenomenological exploration

Despite the rising interest in leadership development, building knowledge about leadership more often than not remains an end in itself, and little is known about how the transfer of leadership learning into leadership enactment is experienced by managers. This research phenomenologically explores the leadership knowing-doing gap, using semi-structured critical incident interviews with 22 managers in leadership roles across various industries and organizational levels in the United Kingdom. Findings offer a comprehensive understanding presenting the leadership knowing-doing gap as a multifaceted and dynamic experience involving cognitive, affective, and behavioral elements that interplay within the processes of creating or widening the gap on the one hand, or preventing or closing the gap on the other hand. Our proposed framework provides a conceptualization of the leadership knowing-doing gap experience that enhances the potential of identifying and operationalizing such an experience for future theory building and empirical research in both management learning and leadership development. We end with practical insights to address the leadership knowing-doing gap and highlight the importance of evaluating leadership development to evidence effective learning transfer and leadership enactment in organizations

Transfer of learning and the cultural matrix: the interrelationship of culture, beliefs, and learning

This study, conducted in an international college in Thailand, aimed to understand the transfer of learning from an undergraduate academic literacy programme to the disciplines. In so doing, it adopted a cultural matrix to investigate the interrelationship among students’ perceptions of transfer of learning, their personal beliefs about knowledge, knowing and learning, and their secondary school backgrounds. A three-part questionnaire, supplemented by purposive semistructured interviews, was used to collect data from all consenting students from the final course in a four-trimester programme. The first part of the questionnaire employed the Epistemic Beliefs Inventory (EBI) in gauging students’ beliefs about knowing and learning, the second part comprised the Measure of Academic Literacy (MALT) , which measure students’ perceptions of transfer of learning from the academic literacy programme to the disciplines, and the third part of the questionnaire surveyed students’ demographic details, specifically with regard to their secondary school context. Data were then analysed to establish the interrelationship between these data sets. Open-ended questions to the MALT section of the questionnaire were analysed, and, in order to illustrate and further understand the data analysis from the questionnaire, trained interviewers conducted semi-structured interviews. Initial, factorial analysis of the EBI indicated a factor structure that differed from that of the US origins of the instrument, suggesting a relationship between culture and beliefs. While analysis indicated a significant low-moderate relationship between students’ beliefs about knowledge and learning and the transfer of learning, no such association was detected between the beliefs and students’ secondary school background. The students’ multicultural backgrounds, coupled with ambivalent beliefs, may provide an explanation for this. The findings, thus,give partial support for the application of the cultural matrix to transfer of learning. The study makes an original contribution by applying the cultural matrix to learning in a previously unexplored way. In so doing, it aims to generate a general theory of transfer of learning while fostering a culturally pluralistic understanding of learners’ beliefs about knowledge and learning and the implications for such transfer. It also advocates an approach that supplements existing classroom-specific pedagogical methods with school-wide cultural management initiatives in order to better effect transfer of learning