Improving the marketing management capacity of selected technology transfer organizations in Ghana
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Date
2001-12-12
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Abstract
The building of a potent national techno-industrial capacity is a crucial aspect of the development effort in underdeveloped countries like Ghana. However, it is always important that such countries are not literally driven into quixotically and futilely reinventing the wheel any time and place a wheel is called for. Thus under the prevailing circumstances, the most realistic and pragmatic way of making headway in the transfer of technology in these countries, is through a prudent systematic exploitation of needed technologies from the already existing centers of advanced technological knowledge and practice. The organizations selected in this study derive their social-economic importance from the role they play, and could play, in such pragmatic initiatives.
Capacity building is a strategic optimization and consolidation process of aligning the organization to the requirements of its operational environment. This is done in order to maximize it ‘goals-achieving’ position. The goals of the organizations (often described here under the cachet of ‘Affirmative Technology Transfer organizations’) are principally derived from the affirmative purposes intrinsic in the activist servicing of niche markets for technological solutions in Ghana.
The present study is conceived as an ‘Evaluating research’, into issues raised by the role of Marketing Management in particular, in the building of Capacity towards achieving the technology transfer goals of these organizations. However, some relevant general Managerial concerns are also discussed, as much these impinge on the objective of Capacity building for technology transfer in these organizations.
The study includes both extensive theoretical modeling and also a real-time survey of a sample of organizations. First an attempt is made to derive a pragmatic sector-wide definition of the elements of adequate Capacity applicable this instance. Based on this, some chosen variables relevant to the focus of emphasis of the study are reviewed in relationship to the selected organizations. The study consequently includes material from both primary and secondary research. Also a deliberate co-emphasis is placed on issues raised in the theoretical modeling of the constituents of adequate capacity as applicable here.
The first chapter defines and examines the concepts of Technology transfer, Capacity building, and their more blatant implications. The background, exact configuration, and relevance of the problem of study is then discussed and defined. The chapter concludes with the description of the aims and objectives sought, and the scope and plan of the study. The next chapter comprises an extensive review of literature and other relevant theoretical issue. It includes substantial inter textural analysis, summaries, and conclusions whose objective is to establish the theoretical parameters of adequate Capacity applicable in the context of the optimum hypothetical aims and objectives of the study. Chapter two discusses the approach and methodology to be applied to achieve the aims and objectives of study. An applicable concept of capacity in this context is discussed and derived; and the exact methods to be adopted in applications are established.
The following chapter initiates the primary research in the study by discussing the general context of the Technology transfer process in the development effort in Ghana. This is continued with a short profile of the organizations in the sample to be surveyed. The findings and results of the primary research are presented in both graphic and text form in chapter five. The concluding chapter offers a two-part conclusion built on the two identifiable aspects targeted in the study i.e. (of the Marketing Management factor and some relevance the Managerial concerns) The study then offers some relevant recommendations based on conclusions arrived.
Description
A thesis submitted to the School of Graduate Studies,
Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in partial
fulfilment of the requirements for the award of Master of Arts degree in Industrial Management, 2001