Master's Thesis in the field of technology management, technology transfer trend
Abstract
One of the most important main factors in the successful application of technology in order to gain a competitive advantage is the awareness and recognition of the level of technological capabilities of the company and their appropriate use. Assessment of technological needs not only identifies the weak and problematic areas of the company, but also pays attention to the relative advantages of the company and specifies them. The present research aims to evaluate the technological capabilities in order to develop a strategy in service companies. Now, considering the importance of evaluating technological capabilities and the issue of strategy formulation, as well as the importance of evaluating technological capabilities in order to formulate strategy, in this research we will identify and prioritize current technologies and suitable indicators for evaluating technological capabilities, in this regard, Persian Gulf Airlines is considered for conducting research. In this research, 52 technologies were identified by reviewing the literature and following the requirements of defining technological capabilities. The importance of these indicators was investigated through the distribution of 200 questionnaires among managers and experts of the Persian Gulf Airlines Company located in Isfahan province, and 195 questionnaires were returned, the data collected through the fuzzy TOPSIS technique were analyzed and finally the indicators were prioritized. Also, using the Panda model, the levels of technological capabilities of this company were evaluated with 36 performance indicators, and finally the gap between the existing and desired levels of technological capabilities was investigated.
Keywords: technological capabilities, fuzzy TOPSIS technique, strategy, Persian Gulf Airlines.
Chapter 1
Research overview
Introduction
The industrial sector of the country, today in terms of technology, is suffering from a kind of lack of planning and most of the industrial problems in line with its underdevelopment are caused by this because the introduction of technology without strategic planning suitable, it has caused capital to leave the country and it does not have proper productivity and efficiency inside. Most importantly, existing technologies do not transfer technical knowledge and produce similar technologies internally, or develop, improve, and localize them. Research shows that technology, as a practical application of knowledge and experience to meet human needs, has played a colorful role in the economic and industrial development of countries and the acquisition of competitive advantages for companies. Technology acquisition from the technology transfer channel includes short-term and long-term benefits. Today, with the advancement of technological capabilities and technology in all knowledge and levels, as well as the necessity of using modern technologies, we see the use of technology evaluation methods and technological capabilities in most industries and parts of the world as a powerful tool for formulating organizational strategy. Knowing the current state of each system and its processes is the first step to make decisions and policies in line with the optimal management of that system. Any decision-making and investment in an organization, which is actually an investment in equipment, human intelligence and collective knowledge, is not excluded from this principle. The combination of the aforementioned factors of the organization, which is known as technology, always requires proper and planned management. This management is not possible without adequate evaluation, knowledge and understanding of the state and performance of the technology at hand and ultimately leads to a management with low efficiency. Technology assessment models are a tool in the hands of technology management, so that with its help, the organization can achieve a proper management of its technology components and ultimately a proper organizational efficiency. Therefore, it is necessary that technology, like other competitive resources, be managed based on a strategic perspective. According to the strategic view of technology, various aspects of the company's technological capability should be investigated, and therefore having a proper understanding of the organization's technological capability will lead to better strategic planning and technology development (Ansari, 2009).In this regard, due to the high importance of technology development, senior managers of economic enterprises should have a correct understanding of the technological capability of their company, identify technological developments in the world, and also take into account the efforts of competitors to achieve new technologies, and continuously take steps towards the technological improvement capability of their organization. Technology in top companies and determining the level of differences and technology gaps between them is the starting point for planning technology development. Technology evaluation by examining the level of technological capabilities and determining the degree of weakness and strength in the technologies in question will increase the capability in strategic planning of technology and its development. The growth and development of the company in today's world is competitive.
There is no comprehensive method in evaluating the technological capability. Researchers have listed various dimensions to evaluate technological capabilities, from which companies should choose suitable criteria according to their activities and use them in the audit process (Mokhtarzadeh, 2013)
Given that Persian Gulf Airlines is related to the service sector, it is necessary to select a model that is comprehensive, which means that it includes a wide range of technologies of a service company in the evaluation. Secondly, the output of the model should be quantitative in order to compare several technological achievements with each other and have a correct understanding of capabilities. It also leads to evaluation of technologies in less time. In particular, the information obtained from the model should be such that it facilitates the strategy formulation process.
Each of the mentioned evaluation methods has a different area of ??focus and pays attention to certain indicators. Therefore, obtaining comprehensive indicators for the evaluation of technologies requires providing a model that considers more aspects of technology.
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The model proposed by Panda and Ramanathan examines the following dimensions.
This model comprehensively examines technological capability at 3 levels (strategic, tactical and complementary technological capabilities) by providing a suitable classification of a company's capabilities. pay Therefore, this model can fully understand the technological capabilities of service companies. If the other models are each focused on a part of these capabilities and have paid less attention to other capabilities.
This model is one of the few models, due to the use of quantitative and qualitative evaluations, it has a suitable capability and efficiency for evaluating the technological capabilities of service companies. While most of the models have only done quantitative or qualitative evaluation. Among the technological capability evaluation models, the Panda and Ramanathan model has paid much attention to strategic capabilities, which can be used to formulate a strategy from the output of this evaluation. Therefore, according to the issues raised, in this research, the Panda and Ramanathan model will be used to evaluate the technological capabilities of Persian Gulf Airlines. The general diagram of this model is shown in Fig. It is presented below. 2-1- Importance and necessity of the topic Today, technology has a special place in the future strategy of a company. Technology management and directing technological activities require optimal allocation of available resources and facilities, and this is not possible without evaluating and prioritizing existing technologies. This evaluation and prioritization shows the importance and impact of technologies on the organization and provides the necessary conditions for choosing key technologies. Many companies are facing challenges in strengthening and increasing their competitiveness to survive in a competitive business environment. Meanwhile, only the companies that benefit from key capabilities and relative advantages have been able to achieve sustainable success (Azer, 2019). In the process of creating competitive advantages, strategy development activities play a very important role.