Assessing the effect of technology transfer actors on technological learning: The case study of the Syrian textile industry

Preliminary step of successful technology policymaking in less developed countries is to understand nature, paceand direction of technical change. Due to limited innovation capacity of less developed countries, reliance onabsorbing elsewhere s technologies and achieving incremental innovation in vicinity of those technologies isdominant. Technology transfer possesses an opportunity of technological learning only when intertwines withsystematic efforts to build indigenous technological capabilities. This paper by adopting technological learningconcept based on technology absorption and incremental innovation at firm level, and identifying roles oftechnology transfer actors that affect technological learning, interconnects these variables in mold of conceptualmodel to assess the effect of technology transfer actors on technological learning. A content validatedquestionnaire by 15 experts was addressed to 33 Syrian textile factories in public and private sectors in order toexamine the assessment model in real life setting. Results of simple linear and multiple linear regression analysisshow notable effect of technology transfer actors on operative capability compared to the effect on adaptive andinnovative capabilities, in addition, ordinal regression analysis results, solely confirm the effect of operativecapability on passive incremental innovation; these findings imply the passive entity of technical change systemof textile industry in Syria.

Keywords:

Technological learning , Technical change , Technological capability , Technology Transfer , Textile , Syria