M.Ing. (Engineering Management) / Engineering design capabilities are highly specialised skills and are often begot through a number of years in a field of specialisation, the research’s aim is to establish how this engineering design capability can be brought into a an organisation through the International Technology Transfer (ITT) medium. In this paper a case study is presented whereby a South African State Owned Organisation (SOC) collaborated with an international company for the acquisition of a new technology, which in turn meant the acquisition of new know-how for the organisation. Despite the dynamics that inherently arise due to the Developed versus Developing Country dynamics it is imperative that the knowledge transfer (KT) initiatives are just as successful, however the difficulty is faced in actually measuring the effectiveness of the knowledge transfer processes. The local engineering industry is still growing and many more of these collaborations are still to be seen in the country, hence it makes it imperative from an engineering management perspective that the quality of the knowledge that can be salvaged from these collaborations is great value for money and is unquestionable. To not only prove the main drivers of the effectiveness of the transfer but to also highlight the areas for improvement a survey in the form of a questionnaire was issued out to the participants of the ITT within the local organisation. Based on literature on similar studies and from the survey results, it is clear that training and engineering human resource development in engineering designs of the technology being transferred is the most important method of ensuring maximum technology transfer. Moreover it was established from the survey results that most often than not this aspect of the transfer process, although ranked as important, is not structured strategically for the benefit of the transferee. Herein, a proposal is thus made as to the key interventions that may be adopted to close the gaps in the technological knowledge aspirations of the organisation.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uj/uj:11238 |
| Date | 29 May 2014 |
| Creators | Moganelwa, Annikie |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Rights | University of Johannesburg |
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