26th International Association for Management of Technology Conference - IAMOT 2017

Understanding the path for technological development and innovation is a longstanding matter of interest for economic and organizational researchers (Bozeman & Link, 2015). However, contemporary technological dynamism and global economic integration brought this interest back (Audretsch et al., 2014). Thus, frontier technology is an important source of competitive advantage for organizations and nations (Leischnig et al., 2014). Notwithstanding, technological innovation and development are not the only access to frontier technology. A viable option is technology and knowledge transfer (TKT), where an already established technology and the knowledge inherent to it that were developed in a given social, economic, cultural and technological context are adapted, transferred, and implemented elsewhere (Rosenberg, 2013). On developing countries, only transferring technology may not be sufficient for reaching frontier technology levels, since public research institutions and universities are the usual locus for technology development and innovation (Rausser et al., 2000). Thus, incentive mechanisms for bringing private actors back into technology development have been recently adopted, which is known as Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs), especially regarding biotechnology, biomedicine, and health care fields (e.g. Woodson, 2016). In Brazil, the efforts to develop frontier technology in a strategic area (public health) aligned technology transfer and PPPs in the program called Productive Development Partnerships (PDPs). In this paper, we aim to comprehend the path for the development of frontier technology in an emerging market context through the lens of TKT and PPPs. We investigated the PDP National Institute for Science and Technology in Diagnosis for Public Health (INDI-Saúde) in the field of molecular biology. Thus, we conducted a qualitative exploratory case study, gathering data through two stages in-depth interviews. The first was an exploratory interview for identifying the institutional context and the history of the arrangement, which led to the creation of a semi-structured guide for conducting second-stage interviews. Then, we conducted in-depth interviews with actors with strategic relevance for the PDP formation and evolution from 1999 to 2014. We analyzed data through thematic content analysis. We triangulated interview data with secondary sources, such as documents and archival data. We found that the arrangement was crucial for developing frontier technology in molecular biology in Brazil. The INDI-Saúde actors were brokers or gatekeepers of such technology, since they were able to gather frontier technology through TKT from abroad, applying, adapting, and developing such technology in order to transfer it to private biotechnology industries in Brazil. Our results showed that this process allowed the technological catching-up of the Brazilian biotechnological industry (Kim & Nelson, 2000), reducing technology distance from developed economies in the field of molecular biology diagnosis applied to public health. Our research contributes to extant literature on TKT and PPPs, since it shows how they may reduce technology distance and induce frontier technological development, especially on emerging economies. Considering innovation systems and strategic thinking debates, our research may contribute for discussions regarding economic and societal impacts of technology developed through initiatives alike PDPs.