Article Critique

In the contemporary business environment, innovations play an extremely important part because innovations can accelerate business development and stimulate fast organizational progress. At the same time, many organizations face considerable problems with the transfer of technologies and their successful implementation in their organizational performance. Many organizations focus on internal technology transfer paying little attention to sources of technologies and their implementation in the organizational performance. In this respect, it is possible to refer to the article “Technology Transfer across Organizational Boundaries: Absorptive Capacity and Desorptive Capacity” by U. Lichtenthaler, where the article explores the mechanism of the implementation of technologies and their transfer to and within organizations.

As the matter of fact, the author of the article places emphasis on the fact that existing studies pay a lot of attention to the internal technology transfer, whereas sources of technology and their effective introduction into organizations are under-researched. At this point, it is worth mentioning the fact that many organizations underestimate the significance of technology for their organizational performance. They pay a lot of attention to the internal technology transfer. In other words, they focus on the use of certain technologies within organizations but they pay little attention to the development and actual implementation of new technologies. Therefore, organizations just become average consumers of technologies but it is the creation of new technologies that actually puts organizations in an advantageous position in their competitive struggle.

In such a situation, the author of the article argues that contemporary organizations should focus on sources of technology. To put it more precisely, the author stresses the importance of external technology transfer and sources of technology as key factors for the development of new technologies and their effective implementation in organizations. Lichtenthaler points out that the development of new technology and the identification of sources of technology open large opportunities for organizations to create new technologies and implement them successfully in their business development. In such a way, organizations can enjoy innovations to the extent that they can take the lead in their industry due to the successful introduction of innovations. In addition, the author argues that organizations should share technology and use external technology transfer through licensing and other mechanisms because such tools can help organizations to implement advanced technologies fast. Moreover, they can benefit from using advanced technology and the high quality of technologies being implemented in their regular performance.

At first glance, the author is right in his persistent claim to shift the attention of organizations from the internal technology transfer to sources of technology and external technology transfer. Obviously, sources of technology and external technology transfer become more and more important in the contemporary highly technological world, when technology progresses fast. On the other hand, the author apparently underestimates the significance of the internal technology transfer. What is meant here is the fact that the internal technology transfer is essential for the successful implementation of technology. In fact, if organizations create a new technology or take a new technology from other organizations, they can hardly benefit from the new technology, if they fail to transfer the technology internally. In other words, the technology will not work properly, if organizations fail to complete the internal technology transfer successfully.

Therefore, Lichtenthaler’s article is noteworthy in terms of understanding the importance of sources of technology for contemporary organizations, but it is impossible to ignore the internal technology transfer.