Abilities and competencies required, particularly by small firms, to identify and acquire new technology

Imagine an organisation faced with a particular problem whose solution requires a degree of technology or expertise not available in-house. Where can the organisation find help? Large companies are generally self sufficient in their R&D requirements. They frequently have large and well equipped research departments. Many also outsource their R&D or keep an eye in the research scene looking for new developments of potential benefit. Smaller companies are normally less self sufficient, and they tend to rely on their suppliers when they need to solve a particular problem. Regardless of size, all companies may, at some stage, need to go into an unfamiliar field and they may then resource to a directory or seek external help to find the appropriate information. The objectives of our project were to: investigate how exploitable innovations are identified in the university sector; understand which factors affect the identification and selection of new technology, particularly by small firms (SMEs); analyse the obstacles to technology transfer between universities and SMEs; and examine the feasibility of an electronic communication network for disseminating information about new technologies. The first part of the paper uses the idea of “configuring the user” to shed light on recent thinking (especially in government and policy) about “the problem of SMEs”. The second part reports our investigation of the potential of the World Wide Web as a virtual market in technology and expertise. We conclude with some suggestions about ways of tackling the problem