How technology transfer really occurs on the factory floor: a case of a major Japanese automotive die manufacturer in the United States

Abstract

Global competition requires increased technology transfer across national boundaries for global business opportunities. Previous studies on technology transfer have assumed that both transferor and transferee possess linguistic competence, and mainly focused on the types and the nature of the technology transferred. When examining international technology transfer between linguistically and culturally very different countries, companies face additional challenges. Through a different theoretical lens in organizational learning, we contribute to the literature on knowledge transfer by proposing and confirming demonstrability and drawability as two new constructs that affect knowledge transfer.