This paper integrates the contributions from different branches of the technology transfer literature to identify enablers driving the transfer of intermediate or appropriate technologies to recipients in rural areas of developing economies. An in-depth analysis of the literature shows that many enablers identified in the literature focus on high technology transfers and are of limited relevance in the context of rural enterprises. Other important enablers in this specific setting are ignored or insufficiently considered. This paper proposes a framework comprising a specific set of enablers that facilitates technology transfer in rural enterprises in developing regional economies. © 2017 Deycy Janeth Sánchez Preciado, Björn Claes and Nicholas Theodorakopoulos.

Technology intermediaries are seen as potent vehicles for addressing perennial problems in transferring technology from university to industry in developed and developing countries. This paper examines what constitutes effective user-end intermediation in a low-technology, developing economy context, which is an under-researched topic. The social learning in technological innovation framework is extended using situated learning theory in a longitudinal instrumental case study of an exemplar technology intermediation programme. The paper documents the role that academic-related research and advisory centres can play as intermediaries in brokering, facilitating and configuring technology, against the backdrop of a group of small-scale pisciculture businesses in a rural area of Colombia. In doing so, it demonstrates how technology intermediation activities can be optimized in the domestication and innofusion of technology amongst end-users. The design components featured in this instrumental case of intermediation can inform policy making and practice relating to technology transfer from university to rural industry. Future research on this subject should consider the intermediation components put forward, as well as the impact of such interventions, in different countries and industrial sectors. Such research would allow for theoretical replication and help improve technology domestication and innofusion in different contexts, especially in less-developed countries. © 2014 Taylor & Francis.

The primary aim of this paper is to demonstrate how technology transfer between universities and rural industries in developing countries can be achieved effectively, using independent research and advisory centres as intermediaries. It draws on a longitudinal action research study, which experiments with the process of nurturing and bridging communities of practice amongst recipients of technology and stakeholders concerned with technology diffusion, productivity and economic development. Its empirical evidence is from an academic-related, non-government intervention initiative targeting two small-scale industries, namely fish farming and coffee production, in the Cauca region of Colombia. Results demonstrate how barriers to transfer can be overcome. The interventionist considered as instrumental; its key components and outcomes are discussed in detail. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

This paper examines the enablers in technology transfer processes as revealed in a development project conducted in rural Colombia. In this rural region, a main business activity is the conversion of waste products from fish production to food pellets for trout and tilapia. Although technology transfer is essential to advance rural enterprises in such economies, little is known about the interaction between rural cooperatives and the entities that can provide technological assistance – universities, governments, and non-governmental organizations. The empirical literature, derived from studies of technology transfer in developed economies, emphasizes the importance of various features that facilitate the transfer of technology: geographic and cultural proximity between participants, the recipients’ absorptive capacity, and a clear understanding of the technology’s source, market maturity, and financial implications. This paper contributes to this literature with its identification and examination of additional features (i.e. enablers) that are particularly relevant to technology transfer in rural regions of developing economies. The paper, which reports on a three-year case study conducted in the Cauca region in southern Colombia, identifies three enablers in technology transfer that can help compensate for the technology recipients’ unfamiliarity with the technology appropriate for their business activities.

Longitudinal studies show that technology transfer changes over time but do not systematically address how this occurs. This paper addresses the evolution of technology transfer by analyzing changes in the focal actors, their perceived problems, problem-solving activities and implemented technological and organizational solutions. Empirically, we analyze the evolution of fish and silk production in Cauca, Colombia, a rural region characterized by a low level of education. While production was initiated by national and international governments, these policy programs failed by themselves to establish technology transfer activities successfully because of governmental short sightedness, lack of producer commitment and transferor-producer arm’s length relations. Over time, interaction among producers and producer cooperatives (recipients), universities (transferors) and intermediaries created a “technology transfer system”. The creation and professionalization of the cooperatives and intermediaries were key events allowing for creating a functioning technology transfer system. The evolution of the system was largely determined by the types of problems the main actors formulated and acted upon. Major problem diversified from being technology-related, to customer, market and distribution oriented. A main organizing principle of both solving and formulating these problems consisted of projects, which means the evolution can be characterized by sequences of projects addressing specific and changing problems over time. The cases are in in line with evolutionary theorizing and the paper concludes with general lessons for technology transfer from an evolutionary perspective.