Three stage technology transfer model

This paper presents a three stages technology transfer model. The first and second stage deals with technology assessment and selection. The third stage is the technology transfer process evaluation. In the first stage, before considering transfer of technology, Utility Theory is used to select the most appropriate technologies. The goal(s) of transferring new technology are identified. The available technologies, which help in attaining the pre-stated goals, are also identified. A list of attributes is determined. These attributes assist in comparing between the available technologies. Then, the relative weight for each attribute is defined. The weight of each attribute can be determined through personnel interviews with experts in the field of technology transfer. The lower limit for each attribute should be determined. After that the utility function of each attribute can be calculated using the functional approach. This approach requires only one reference value for initiating the process. Then the same procedure is repeated to determine the utility function for each attribute. Finally the utility index equation for each technology is determined to get the utility index value and for each technology utility index equation is solved by genetic algorithm. The available technologies are rearranged according to the utility index of each technology in descending order. The top 3 technologies that have the largest utility index are chosen. In the second stage of the model, the "ability to transfer" index is calculated for each selected technology from stage 1. In this step the package is divided into subsystems. The "ability to transfer" index consists of many factors such as: percentage needed to transfer, environment pollution, technology flexibility, resources, etc. The relative importance of each factor is considered in calculating the "ability to transfer" index. In the final stage, a measurement to evaluate the effectiveness and outcomes of technology transfer is taken into account. These measures include: job opportunities, new businesses started, new commercial customers, and user satisfaction (good quality in sufficient quantity with low prices).