The Effects of Techno-Economic and Organizational Factors on the Adoption of Nasa-Innovations by Commercial Firms in the U.S.

This paper reports the effects of several organizational and techno-economic factors which tend in facilitate and/or inhibit the successful transfer and commercial utilization of technology generated outside the organizational setting of a potential industrial user. The essential difference between the two traditions of research--technology transfer and the diffusion of innovations--is that technology transfer studies have tended to emphasize the point-to-point transfer mechanism whereas the diffusion literature had dealt with the pattern of spending an item over time. These tradition are not mutually exclusive an studies in both can help us to increase our understanding of technology transfer. The transfer of technology between different institutional settings, such as between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration an various potential commercial users, was the specific subject of the research reported in this paper.