International technology transfer: Model and exploratory study in the People's Republic of China

Adoption of foreign‐developed technology by firms in developing nations will accelerate the speed by which they become globally competitive in new product development. In this study, we build and empirically test an extension of the technology acceptance model (TAM) – the “extended TAM” – applied to the study of international transfer of product technology. The extended TAM model derives from the TAM of Davis et al., extensively used in information technology applications. The extended TAM is built on the premise that a person's attitudes toward a behavior influence their intentions to perform that behavior, and behavioral intentions influence the actual performance of the behavior. In the extended TAM, perceived ease of use is operationalized as two independent variables, technological compatibility and ease of adoption, and anticipated benefits of adoption are operationalized in terms of technical and economic benefits to the adopting firm. These antecedents have direct and indirect effects on attitudes toward the adoption of foreign‐developed technology by managers from developing countries, and on behavioral intentions to adopt such technology. We conduct an exploratory empirical test of the model using a convenience sample of respondents representing several industries in the People's Republic of China (PRC). Strong support is found for all hypotheses in the model. We conclude with research and managerial implications regarding international technology transfer and new product development.