The commercialization process of advanced technology products (case study of commercial airplanes)

Master's thesis in the field of technology management, technology transfer trend

Chapter one

Research generalities

1-1) Statement of the problem:

Commercialization[1] is an important category both in theory and in practice. The competition crisis of the 70s and 80s in the United States was not the crisis of creating new scientific and technological ideas, but the crisis of turning them into commercial applications.  Initiatives without application or with limited application may be somewhat useful for the innovator or the society, but its importance is determined when these initiatives become commercial applications (Shan, 2001).

Commercialization, which is one of the pillars of the success of start-up businesses, does not have a favorable position among Iranian innovators, and if some of them pay attention to the commercialization process, this attention is superficial and not deep. Unfortunately, in our country, there has been a lot of failure in the field of commercialization of technology, and even in terms of research, no attention has been paid to it. In the process of technology development, one of the stages that has received little attention in countries like Iran is the stage of technology commercialization. In our country, due to the presence of intelligent and creative human resources, good ideas are presented at the research stage (both at the university level and at the experimental and workshop level), but unfortunately, most of them stop at the same level and the next steps to bring the ideas into the production stage are not carried out. After the revolution, many efforts have been made in this direction, but it seems that the commercialization phase has not yet been institutionalized due to the root reasons hidden in the country's economy and other structural, political and other problems. Economic and livelihood problems and lack of employment despite significant oil revenues and other national advantages show the root of these problems. The process of commercialization is necessary to transform raw materials or academic research into economic and practical technologies. Especially in third world countries that do not pay attention to commercialization due to the inability to transform research and scientific ideas into practical technologies. Even though Iran is a country where there is a lot of idea generation, it cannot invest efficiently and effectively to use these ideas in industries and in practical mode, and it does not give academicians and researchers enough value and motivation to create ideas and commercialize them. Our country has not been able to successfully implement commercialization due to the mismatch between strategies and the needs of industries. Since the commercialization of technology is a problem in the process of technology development and innovation in many organizations, the question arises as to how the activity of this field should be? We must promote the success rate of commercialization by creating coordination and integration between the activities in the industry and the government as well as scientific and research fields. In particular, the government's role in this process should be moderated. . Since government investment in the R&D sector, private companies and institutions, and a strong research base play an important role in technology transfer and commercialization, then in order to advance commercialization in the industries of our country, attention should be paid to these issues in the first stage, and also one of the factors that should be considered is the relationship between universities and industry, which unfortunately does not receive the necessary attention. In addition to these factors, attention should also be paid to the sector innovation system as well as the open innovation system.

Obviously, the focus of this view is on one part and considers it as the main core of its analysis. In fact, the differences in the nature and structure of different technological sectors make the idea come to mind that the evaluation and analysis of innovation at the sector level will be much more efficient. Breschi and Malerba presented this concept for the evaluation and analysis of innovation at the sector level and defined it as the innovation and production sector system (Breschi and Malerba 1997): "The innovation and production sector system is a set of new and existing products that are used in a specific field and sets of actors that have market and non-market interactions in the field of creating, producing and selling those products. A sector system, including the knowledge base, Technologies, inputs and demand (existing and potential). The actors of a system are: organizations and individuals (consumers, entrepreneurs and scientists).Organizations may be companies (such as users, producers, and suppliers of inputs) or they may be non-corporate organizations (universities, financial institutions, government agencies, trade unions, technical institutions, etc.), in addition, they may be subsets of large organizations (such as research and development and production departments of organizations) or they may be collections of organizations (such as industrial associations). Each of these actors is characterized by certain characteristics such as: learning processes, abilities, beliefs, goals, organizational structure and behaviors. These actors interact with each other through communication, exchange, cooperation, competition and command processes, and their interactions are shaped by institutions (laws and rules). Over time, a partial system undergoes changes and transformation processes through the simultaneous evolution of its various elements. Is it formed based on the needs of the country? And how and to what extent can this be made possible in this field. How should the necessary conditions be created to promote this in this field?

Today, we talk about the commercialization of science and technology, which is the basis of countless opportunities to create new products and processes or improve old ones. The opportunities for business and development in the field of technology are many, and their exploitation only requires entrepreneurs, investors, and political leaders to pursue these opportunities. In fact, not paying attention to the commercialization of inventions hinders the entry of innovations, creativity, and ideas into the economic, social, and cultural fields of society. The increase in the volume of global trade in the last two decades and reaching the border of 31 trillion dollars is mainly due to the commercialization of research achievements and initiatives. A look at the export composition of a number of countries in the world - especially industrialized and newly industrialized countries - shows that more than 30 to 40% of their export items are products that are the result of the commercialization of research findings.

However, without a doubt, one of the challenges of scientific innovators after turning their idea into reality is to bring the invention to the scene of society and actually commercialize that invention so that everyone can benefit from the applications of this invention. Any type of technology is considered an investment. Every investment should be able to have a good return on investment and its risk should be acceptable. The return of technology capital is realized through sale or transformation into a product (goods or services). 12) Importance and necessity of the issue: Considering the importance of the issue of commercialization and on the other hand due to the existence of obstacles in the commercialization of products and created ideas (such as financial, government obstacles, etc.), more attention and emphasis on the commercialization process in the industries of our country is required. Since commercialization is one of the main links of the innovation process and more attention is paid to creating innovation and commercialization in the country's industries and solving existing problems for commercialization in third world countries, especially Iran, we must improve commercialization in the industry so that by improving it, in addition to commercializing the ideas created in R&D and universities, we can even achieve innovation and technology transfer to other industries and countries. Increasing the rate of commercialization of technology brings many achievements for the society, organizations and innovators, the most important of which are: increasing standards and quality of life, producing national/organizational/individual wealth, creating competitive advantage, productivity growth, success in the market and innovation in processes and products, developing industries and products related to technology/inventions.

This research can examine the problems and bottlenecks in the field of commercialization through a case study in the aviation industry organization and provide solutions and policies. to formulate strategies to facilitate the commercialization process