International Transfers of Technologies: Successes and Failures of Productive Systems and General Guidelines for Policy

This chapter focuses on the success and failure of international technology transfers. It shows that technology transfers are not correctly addressed by referring only to the contracting of a technology. This is a crucial question to any vendor of technology and any buyer of technology. In fact, by limiting the chapter to what seems a specific question, we will present an account of a larger debate: how a productive system can be transferred from one location to another? Technologies are always embedded in a specific productive system. By looking at the productive system instead of the technology, a better understanding of the whole process may be obtained.