This essay presents the theoretical bases on learning and building technological capabilities at the company level in developing countries.
A substantial advance in understanding the process of accumulating technological capabilities in the context of developing countries has been the use of taxonomies (Lall 1992; Bell and Pavitt 1995).
technological-learning-construction-capacity-development-countriesInitially, a brief review is made of some studies that contributed to establishing the main premises of said literature, which defines the basis for understanding the role played by learning in the process of building technological capabilities in companies; The approaches to technological learning and technological capabilities, the types of capabilities, the construction process, the forms of technological learning are examined and finally the main relevant points of consensus among the authors are summarized to approximate the problem addressed in this study.
Key words: Technological Learning, Technological Capacities.
Background
At the end of the 1970s, there was a fairly widespread idea that developing countries were purely passive recipients of technology.advanced in the industrialized world. This stance was vigorously challenged by a series of empirical studies on learning processes and the acquisition of certain technological capabilities at the company level. These studies documented vast empirical evidence showing that technological knowledge is not easy to imitate or transfer between companies, because such knowledge is tacit and cumulative. This led to the understanding that the transfer of technology could only be made effective when the receiving companies linked the transfer processes with processes of learning and development of internal capacities.
Lall (1987) points out that the company that applies imported technology for the first time, even when it is a body of knowledge widely spread in the developed world, requires learning and deploying a conscious effort. Furthermore, no technology can be applied in a completely given way: changes are always necessary to meet the scales, raw materials, climate, skills and needs of local markets.After these initial changes are made to production technology, productivity can increase over time by introducing 'minor' innovations of various kinds to that technology. Then the technology itself can be modified. This can be done in several ways: importing the know-how and the required equipment, importing only the equipment or the know-how (and producing the other in the country or the company), or doing everything in the country or the company. Once again, it takes effort to innovate, copy or select the right technology and assimilate it.
In this regard, Kim (1997) states that “technology can be transferred to a company from abroad, or through local diffusion, but not the ability to use it effectively. This ability can only be acquired by internal technological effort. "
The evolution in the use of the concepts of learning and accumulation of capacities to become a framework for the analysis of the construction of technological capacities in developing countries, was significantly fueled by the results of two large projects carried out between late 70s and early 80s. The first project was the “Research Program in Science and Technology”, financed by IDB / ECLA, which was based on comparative research at the company level of the metalworking industry in six Latin American countries. The second, financed by the World Bank, was titled "The acquisition of technological capabilities". This project, unlike the first one that only included Latin American countries, also included a set of studies at the level of companies in India and South Korea.
These studies showed that many companies in developing countries have undergone important technological learning processes. In the case of Latin America, the studies by Katz (1986), and his collaborators, offered evidence that there were significant learning processes in companies in the metal-mechanic industries. The results of these studies showed differences by type of company, nature of the production process and market structure. However, the great contribution of this research program was to provide evidence that companies in developing countries were not simply recipients of technology. The analysis showed that Latin American companies had learned and built technological capabilities. Even more,The companies were not only able to assimilate and adapt the technology transferred from the central countries, but to improve it and even export technology in some cases.
Empirical studies set the tone for the subsequent evolution of the framework of analysis for the study of technological capacity building in developing countries. Lall (1992), and later Bell and Pavitt (1995) based on the proposal of the former, presented a taxonomy of technological capabilities in companies, based on their main technological capabilities by technical function.
Definition of learning, learning-knowledge relationship
According to authors like Bell (1984); Villavicencio (1990); Pirela et al. (1991);
Villavicencio and Arvanitis (1994); Dutrénit (2000a); Vera-Cruz (2000), learning is defined as the process through which companies create knowledge and acquire technological capabilities.
While Teece et al. (1994) define it as a process that involves repetition and experimentation, which makes it possible to perform tasks better and faster, and to identify new production opportunities.
In this way, learning is a process and knowledge a result of learning. Knowledge is the result of learning processes, and the application of knowledge feeds back learning processes (Figure 1).
Source: Dutrénit and Flores (2001)
Knowledge is perceived as an asset of the company, from which the learning processes and construction of new knowledge are reinforced.
Learning levels
Some authors distinguish three levels: individual, group and organizational. Others analytically differentiate between individual and organizational. Technological learning takes place at two levels: individual and organizational.
Simon (1996), points out that «all learning takes place first at the individual level, within the heads of individuals; An organization learns in only two ways:
- by learning from its members, or by incorporating new members who have the knowledge that the organization did not previously have ”.
Thus, the definition of learning, and therefore knowledge, is primarily an individual matter. However, individual learning is a social phenomenon, what an individual learns largely depends on what is already known by other members of the organization. So, although organizational learning occurs through individuals, there is a consensus that organizational learning is not the sum of individual learning by members of the organization.
Organizational learning is the object of study by several authors, from different disciplines, among which are: Argyris and Schön (1978), Hedberg (1981), Fiol and Lyles (1985), Levitt and March (1988), Cohen and Levinthal (1989), Senge (1990), Garvin (1993), Dodgson (1993), Huber (1996), Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) and Cohen and Sproull (1996), who present various definitions of this concept. Some of them focus on behavioral changes, while others emphasize the new ways of thinking that are generated; some emphasize sharing information while others focus on building shared visions.
From the perspective of behavioral theory
Levitt and March (1988) point out that "organizations learn by incorporating inferences from history into routines that guide behavior." Huber (1996) states that "an entity learns if, through processing information, it changes the variety of its potential behaviors". Due to the processes of specialization and departmentalization, organizations often do not have knowledge about everything they know, therefore, the construction of an organizational memory is a key element for learning.
From the perspective of organizational and management studies
Argyris and Schön (1978) consider that organizational learning includes the detection and correction of errors. They define three levels of learning: single cycle, double cycle, and deuterium learning (learning to learn), according to the way of discerning and correcting errors. Dodgson (1993) describes learning at the organizational level as' the ways that companies build, change, and organize knowledge and routines around their activities and within their cultures, and adapt and develop organizational efficiency through enhance the use of the broad skills of their workforce. " This author points out that it is important not only what a company knows or the skills it possesses, but how it uses them.
From the perspective of the academic literature on strategic management of technology
Authors who analyze the characteristics of a "learning organization" have contributed to the conceptualization of organizational learning.
Senge (1990) defined and popularized the notion of learning organizations as "places where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they sincerely desire, where new and expansive thought patterns are nurtured, where collective aspiration is freely established, and where people are continuously learning how to learn ». The author suggests five sets of characteristics, called component technologies, to achieve this result: systemic thinking, personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, and team learning. Based on these ideas, Garvin (1993) proposed a new definition of what a learning organization is, "it is an organization with skills to create, acquire and transfer knowledge,and to modify their behavior to reflect new knowledge and ideas. These learning organizations carry out five activities: systematic problem solving, experimentation with new approaches, learning from their own experience and past history, learning from others' experiences and best practices, and knowledge transfer quickly and efficiently throughout the organization. ” Organizational learning is at the base of these activities.and the transfer of knowledge quickly and efficiently throughout the organization ». Organizational learning is at the base of these activities.and the transfer of knowledge quickly and efficiently throughout the organization ». Organizational learning is at the base of these activities.
Leonard-Barton (1992a and 1995), concentrates on the analysis of the process of building core technological capabilities. She points out that to build these capacities companies must act as learning laboratories. Leonard-Barton (1992b), expresses that a learning laboratory is an organization dedicated to the creation, collection and control of knowledge. It is a system that includes a set of activities, values and administrative practices. She defines four key activities: problem solving, integration of internal knowledge, innovation and experimentation, and integration of external information flows, each of which is a subsystem that includes administrative values and practices.Organizational learning is based on administrative practices and the values that allow the development of key activities.
However, many authors assume that individual learning directly becomes organizational learning, and then either discuss learning in general, or assume that it is one of several key factors that combine to maintain, nurture, and renew the core capabilities of companies..
The literature uses different categories to assess learning processes at the company level:
Forms of learning. By ways of learning literature refers to: Learning using, learning from own experiences, learning from research and development, learning from training, learning from hiring key individuals, learning from interaction, learning from clients, learning from competitors, learn from reverse engineering, learn from licensing, and learn from information seeking.
Learning activities. The concept " learning activities " refers to those activities that the company develops through which it can learn. It is a concept that does not imply results. Some of the learning activities are: Production, engineering, monitoring of internal experiences at the plant level, research and development, adaptation, reverse engineering, analysis of competitor products, visit to the establishment of competitors, licensing.
Learning mechanisms. Some authors use the concept « learning mechanisms », which supposes that the company developed an activity and it worked, in such a way that it became a recognized mechanism. Other authors have set out to identify the sources of knowledge for innovation. Knowledge is a result of learning, so they focus on results.
Sources of knowledge. Levin et.al (1987) and Arundel, van de Paal and Soete (1995), make a distinction between internal and external sources.
The main internal sources of knowledge, according to these authors, are: Research and development (own), affiliated companies and training. External sources: strategic alliances and licensing agreements, independent suppliers of materials, components, supplies and equipment, independent clients, public research institutes, universities and institutions of higher education, and technical analysis of competitors' products.
For the purposes of this study, it is more convenient to consider learning activities and sources of knowledge for innovation.
Technological capabilities
Knowledge, as a result of learning, allows us to create technological capacities, and capacities determine the ability to do things. Therefore, to analyze the concept of technological capabilities it is necessary to first analyze the concept of knowledge.
Next, a distinction is made between data, information and knowledge, the creation of productive knowledge in companies, the company as a learning space, the creation of productive knowledge, the types of knowledge and their interrelation, and then the concept of capabilities is defined technological.
Data-information-knowledge
Knowledge is a concept related to data and information, but broader.
(Figure 2).
Figure 2 Data, information and knowledge
Davenport and Prusak (1998) present a pragmatic definition of knowledge: “Knowledge is a fluid mix of structured experience, values, contextualized information, and expert ideas that provide a framework for evaluating and incorporating new experiences and information. It originates and is applied in the minds of connoisseurs. In organizations it is often embedded not only in documents but also in organizational routines, processes, practices, and standards. ”
The creation of productive knowledge in companies
One of the main currents of economic thought conceives innovation as a cumulative process resulting from the technological learning capacities of companies Dosi, G. et al., (1988). However, while some authors use a restricted notion of technological learning essentially attending to the knowledge derived from the activities carried out by the ID units, others suggest that a set of articulated activities carried out by individuals (technological watch, negotiation of technological assistance contracts, equipment maintenance, training, ID), make up a behavior or, better said, a nucleus of capacities that express the degree of accumulation of technological knowledge by the company.
In recent debates on the problem of innovation, the idea that the learning process of a company cannot be considered a summation of the individual learning of the actors that compose it, but the result of a complex process of articulation of knowledge and the experiences of each individual that in certain conditions and through various mechanisms leads to the learning of the entire organization and the creation of new knowledge. We must ask ourselves how the learning process happens and lasts in companies and how it leads to innovation.
From the study of the development of techniques AP Usher (1955), he raised the idea that when the company acquires technology, it carries out a cumulative process of elaboration of actions and knowledge that allow it to use it efficiently. Subsequently, N. Rosenberg (1976) proposed that the adoption of techniques implies certain transformations of the technological object, so it is possible to speak of progressive improvements. In recent years many economists have been interested in analyzing the problem of organizational conditions conducive to the development of innovations in companies. Today it is assumed that technological learning that individuals carry out depends on the organization and coordination mechanisms of the various activities of the company and on the relationships it maintains with external actors such as universities or other companies.
The company as a learning space
In the last decades, different approaches have become important in the debate on the company (or the firm) that give it an active role in the functioning of the markets., in opposition to the passive conception of companies that prevailed in the first half of the 20th century. From Simon, H.'s (1979) works, on the decision processes in companies, for example, a critique of the conception of the perfect market and the predictable behavior of companies follows. For the author, a central aspect is the treatment that companies give to the information they acquire. However, the information that prevails in the markets is incomplete and imperfect, making it impossible to know all the present and future conditions of market or company behavior. Their behavior is therefore heterogeneous, characterized by limited selection and decision processes (technological, organizational, financial) that contribute to the formulation of their particular trajectories.
The following postulate can be added: organizations are complex and are made up of groups of individuals with different interests, so they need to establish principles of coordination. The forms of coordination over time represent routine organizational procedures, responses that have been shown to be effective and inexpensive for the organization. These so-called behavioral analyzes that appeared in the 1960s defined the company as a collective entity made up of individuals who have different objectives (self-esteem, status, security, power, prestige) in addition to the economic one. Of these, companies manage to satisfy a part through arbitrations and hierarchical stratifications and forms of organizational regulation. For her part, AD.Chandler explains that companies make strategic adjustments to their forms of organization. The author observed organizational innovations that lead to a search for efficiency in the distribution of factors in companies. They develop coordination capacities of their factors and functions that make them relate efficiently to a changing environment.
Previous ideas were taken up by evolutionary approaches to technical change. R. Nelson and S. Winter used the notion of routines to explain the ways of learning in companies. The main idea is that routines embody the specific way in which problems were solved in a company in the past. These routines constitute the competence of companies insofar as they articulate the knowledge and skills (know how) of the different members of the company. Routines express the degree of accumulation of operational and technological knowledge in a company.They simultaneously represent organizational and technical behaviors and constitute collective responses that resolve the uncertainties experienced by the organization. From this perspective, company learning is considered a change in routines, such as the appearance of new routines in the face of technological and productive opportunities that arise.
However, to understand the processes of change in companies, it is necessary to understand how the process of modifying routines operates and not only its results. In other words: how do the learnings arise that are improving and optimizing the behavior of companies? How are inoperative routines forgotten or discarded and how are the coordination mechanisms of the various individual and group routines established?
Routines are expressed necessarily synchronously and it is not possible to study them without understanding their coordination and interaction mechanisms. It can be said that the company "learns" to the extent that it stores, manages and mobilizes a set of experiences, skills and knowledge. As will be seen later, knowledge can be of a different nature and located in different areas or spaces of the company.
On the other hand, restricting the notion of routines to productive behaviors does not allow taking into account the existence of other types of competences that can be used in unforeseen situations, other behaviors, such as communication processes or the relationship between actors who share the same work situation in a company. These behaviors involve affective dimensions in addition to technical or productive ones. The forms of relationship between individuals are not given in advance; Although they are prescribed by the hierarchy, they are built through tensions, arrangements and forms of cooperation. It is this construction that gives the company its internal organizational dynamics, its exchanges with the exterior and its possibility of change.
From a sociological perspective, companies do not exist or live solely on the basis of the market, of what it dictates or sanctions. As organized entities, made up of social actors, companies develop their own dynamics that express the diverse interests and expectations of these actors. The company is an economic system sanctioned by the market
Know what
Know why
Know how
Know who
Each of the technical functions is described below:
Investment technical functions
They are those that are required before creating new facilities or expanding the existing plant. They include the capabilities to identify potential needs, prepare and obtain the necessary technology, and the skills to design, build, equip, and obtain qualified personnel. Skills to determine the cost of the project investment, its convenience, the size of the plant, the diversity of products, the characteristics of the technology, the search for technology sources, the negotiation of contracts and the logistics of supplies.
Technical production functions
They can be ranked in basic, intermediate and advanced. The basic ones include skills to deal with quality control, equipment operation and maintenance. Intermediates are the capabilities to adapt equipment, improve products and processes or use it in other applications, as well as skills to assimilate imported technologies. The advanced ones involve innovative high-risk capabilities based on research and development that allow the improvement of homemade processes and products, as well as the ability to establish links with research and development institutions outside the company (Lall, 1996). Technical support functions
They are those skills that allow companies to receive and transmit information, knowledge, experience and technology from agents located in the external environment such as: suppliers, clients, partners, competitors, technology fairs, specialized magazines, patents, subcontractors, technology consultants, schools technical public and private university institutions, etc.
As Lall (1996) points out, the conceptualization is only indicative, since it is not easy to judge in advance if a technological capacity is simple or complex, important or not important for the company.
The process of accumulation of technological capabilities
The technological learning process is determined by pressures both internal and external to the company. Therefore, national economic systems are the framework in which companies produce, sell and compete, either within or between each economic system, that is, placing their goods or services on the domestic market or exporting to other markets. that makes productivity the key to shaping the technological culture of companies and economic sectors in constant competition worldwide.
The process of accumulating technological capacities is based on learning processes (Bell, 1984, Katz, 1986, and 1987). Learning is considered the way to build technological capabilities. According to Bell and Pavitt (1995), technological learning refers to "any process in which the resources to generate or manage technical change (technological capabilities) are increased or reinforced".
The technological learning process is not automatic, on the contrary, it is gradual and cumulative in nature; it is a social and collective process; it is local and has an unspoken dimension Bell (1984). Similarly, he points out that it is necessary to invest directly in learning processes to accumulate technological capabilities; This process above all requires a deliberate learning strategy.
Based on the description of two successful cases in the construction of technological capacities, Dahlman and Valadares Fonseca (1987) and Kim (1997) reveal the existence of deliberate strategies implemented by those firms to assimilate technology transfer and acquire technological capacities.
Dodgson (1993) notes that the term "learning" has been used in at least two ways by different bodies of literature. The basically economic one and that of business administration and innovation:
Try to examine the learning outcomes, before understanding what learning really is and how these outcomes are accomplished. In contrast, the learning process is one of the biggest concerns in organizational theory and psychological theory.
For example, a set of authors focuses on the effects of learning, as well as on performance indicators, which reveal the existence of technological capabilities and learning processes, while Bell and Pavitt (1995) and Lall (1987 and 1992) analyze learning as a process of accumulation of technological capabilities. Bell and Pavitt argue that it is necessary to differentiate between the accumulation of a certain amount of resources and the use of them to generate and manage processes in innovation.
The literature on learning and accumulation of technological capacities establishes direct links between both phenomena. As the definition indicates, learning processes are the vehicle for acquiring technological capabilities, these authors highlight the process and mechanisms by which companies can develop an evolutionary and sequential process of accumulating technological capabilities.
At the company or industrial sector level, in developing countries, Technological Capacity is understood as the ability to select, assimilate, adapt and improve existing or imported technology, and / or create new technology. A continuous technological effort is required in these processes, which, in turn, is defined as the ability to use technological knowledge effectively. Thus, the mere fact of having the equipment and operating instructions, patents and designs, does not ensure that the technology will be applied properly.
Lall (1992) points out that these "built-in" elements of a technology must be accompanied by a number of unspoken elements, which have to be taught and learned. So the success of transferring a new technology to a developing country has to include an important element: capacity building.
Various categories of technological activities in developing countries have been proposed in the literature and a series of stages in the process of acquiring or developing technological capacity have been identified.
The most common sequence can be summarized in the following stages:
- Identification of an opportunity or a problem (since taking advantage of the opportunity or solving the problem implies a technological dimension).Explore possible technological solutions, study and select the most appropriate ones and, if necessary, effectively negotiate the acquisition of new technological knowledge. Operate technology Adapt technology to local conditions (based on local input and output prices, range of skills available locally, local market tastes, availability of raw materials, weather, etc.) Modify technology in response to changes in the economic environment (increased productivity, new presentation). Substantially modify the process or product (major change to the original technology).Carry out internal research and development in an organized and systematic way
In this sequence of stages it is generally considered that there is a qualitative increase in the depth and complexity of the knowledge required to carry out each stage. However, it should not be believed that each company goes through the entire sequence.
This series of stages in the acquisition of technological capacities can be analyzed with what other authors within the same literature identify as the forms of these capacities: Thus, stages 1 and 2 correspond to the technological acquisition capacity, stage 3 to assimilation capacity, stages 4 and 5 to the capacity for modification (or minor change) and stages 6 and 7 to the capacity for innovation. To these forms are added the engineering and design capacity, as well as the linking capacity.
According to Villavicencio (1994), technological learning encompasses two dimensions: The first refers to knowledge that is materialized in machinery and equipment, production devices and documents, which provides the opportunity to formalize and transmit it to other people.
The second is with respect to the knowledge held by the production actors. In these two dimensions, original knowledge is accumulated, that is, what results, most of the time, from individual and collective experiences, accumulated in long learning processes and that are difficult to formalize in documents, since it is only possible to perceive them partially in practice by those who execute the work and production processes.
According to this proposal, technological learning consists of four moments within a company:
Time of equipment acquisition and installation. This step is related to the transmission of information by the provider, necessary for its operation.
Equipment start-up or operation moment. This phase of technological learning is related to the ability to correctly carry out the different functions for which the equipment was designed.
Equipment maintenance and repair time. It is linked to the possibility of what has been called reverse engineering.
Moment of modifications or improvements. That is, to transform the team and allow the integration of new functions required by the market.
By influencing the first three steps, a capacity is fostered to grow technological learning qualitatively and quantitatively, both technically and economically; This provides an opportunity to enter the fourth moment, which is to create incremental or radical innovations in processes or teams.
Conclusions
The technological development required for successful industrialization in developing countries has not depended on the type of major innovation. While other forms of technological capacity have contributed greatly to the achievement of efficient production, major innovation has been of little importance. Adequate technological absorption capacity (acquisition, assimilation, adaptation and minor change) may be sufficient to achieve productivity close to or equal to world levels. This means that, without being technologically self-sufficient, it is possible to accumulate, with the required effort, local technological capacities.
Main contributions of the literature on learning and building technological capacities in developing countries.
Providing a valuable analytical framework to understand the processes of building technological capabilities at the company level is the main contribution of this literature. This analytical framework has been built on a strong empirical basis. His main contributions are listed below:
- It shows that the transfer of technology requires learning processes and the development of certain local capacities. It also reveals that many companies in developing countries evidently made progress in strengthening these capacities through processes of technology transfer during the period of the closed economy. It has generated important evidence that learning is not an automatic process. not cheap, and that to be effective requires deliberate efforts. Several authors acknowledge that there are differences in the technological effort of companies and that the depth of technological capabilities, achieved on average, can vary according to the type of industry, the size of the company, the level of market development and strategies commercial adopted.An important distinction has been made between technological capabilities and production capacity. The former refer to the knowledge and skills incorporated in people and organizations. They are a dynamic capacity that allows the companies that own it to absorb, adapt and improve existing knowledge, they are not just a given set of equipment and production capacities. They have focused their attention on demonstrating that developing countries have generated a sequential and evolutionary process of accumulation of technological capacities over time, focusing on the analysis of how technological capacities are accumulated, and on the identification of mechanisms and common processes for promoting technological development.In this sense, the efforts of these authors have concentrated on the identification and analysis of general patterns of behavior of different types of companies; on the other hand, behavioral differences between individual companies has not been a major issue of concern for these authors. Overall, this literature presents an optimistic view of the learning capabilities of companies in developing countries. The objective of a good number of works has been to document the existence of learning processes within companies in these countries, and show that through these processes they acquired technological capabilities.This information shows that companies use a wide variety of learning mechanisms and that they experience changes over time (predominance of learning from external sources in the early stages of companies, and from internal sources as they build and accumulate more technological capabilities.). Learning is generated through a wide variety of formal and informal sources, such as research and development, innovation activities associated with the adaptation and incremental modification of existing technologies, production experiences, engineering activities associated with installed capacity expansion projects, equipment suppliers, etc. Learning by itself does not always generate progress; However,The economic benefits to be gained from effective learning are quite obvious, such as increased productivity, greater independence from local industry and technology management, the ability to choose and obtain the most suitable foreign technology at favorable prices, and the ability to respond better to external technical and economic changes. Widely recognizes the role of context and external stimuli in the processes of learning and building technological capabilities. (Lall, 1987, and Katz, 1987).and the ability to better respond to external technical and economic changes. It widely recognizes the role of context and external stimuli in learning processes and in building technological capabilities. (Lall, 1987, and Katz, 1987).and the ability to better respond to external technical and economic changes. It widely recognizes the role of context and external stimuli in learning processes and in building technological capabilities. (Lall, 1987, and Katz, 1987).
This research was based on the contributions made by this literature, which have strengthened the understanding of the aforementioned processes, to explore the problem of the direction of causality between the increase in productive capacity and the processes of learning and construction of technological capacities..
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By technology: we will understand the set of knowledge that is incorporated into the production system for the control and improvement of work management and organization activities, design, production and marketing of a good or service.
For Lall (1995), much of the traditional, theoretical and empirical bibliography has overlooked the need to study technological activity and its production in developing countries. In neoclassical theory this problem is ignored and in international trade theory technology is considered to be freely available to all countries and companies.
Bell and Pavitt's (1993, 1995) taxonomy classifies the main technological capabilities based on four technical functions: two basic and two supportive. The first are: i) investment activities and ii) production activities. The two support functions are i) the development of links with companies and institutions and ii) the production of capital goods. The levels of technological capabilities are defined by the degree of difficulty of the activities. These range from the most basic levels of routine production capabilities to three levels (basic, intermediate and advanced) of depth of innovation capabilities.
In the debate on the "Organizational creation of knowledge (Nonaka and Takeuchi) and the development of" technological capacities "(Bell and Pavitt, 1995), several notions and theoretical-methodological clarifications stand out that allow us to understand aspects such as the difference between information and knowledge, the complementarity between tacit and codified knowledge, the very notion of technological learning, to name a few (see Fransan, 1994; Senker, 1995; Pirela et al., 1993; Villavicencio and Salinas, 2002).
For the author, a central aspect is the treatment that companies give to the information they acquire. However, the information that prevails in the markets is incomplete and imperfect, making it impossible to know all the present and future conditions of the behavior of the markets or companies. Their behavior is therefore heterogeneous, characterized by limited selection and decision processes (technological, organizational, financial) that contribute to the formulation of their particular trajectories.
The theory of behavior brought the theory of decision, where the company is seen as a decision system, since all the participants of the company make decisions within a tangle of exchange relationships, which characterize organizational behavior.
Innovation: "It is the process that consists of combining technical opportunities with needs, integrating a technological package that aims to introduce or modify products or processes in the productive sector, with their consequent commercialization." (Cadena et. Al; 1986).
Technological capacity “is understood as the set of resources used to exploit the potential of technical knowledge and transform it into new units of production capacity - incorporating or not novel technical knowledge and existing improvements in production capacity (where improvements constitute the solution of bottlenecks, or the incorporation of changes in the production system, which in turn may incorporate novel technical knowledge or not) ”. (Avalos and Viana, 1988).
Technological Learning: It is a dynamic process that starts from the levels of knowledge achieved through the acquisition of technological information during the negotiation and contracting process, and that is developed through the knowledge and skills acquired during assembly, commissioning and operation of the plant.
It is worth mentioning neo institutionalism, the theory of transaction costs, the evolutionary approach, that of the conventions and the theory of the Japanese firm, among others.
These authors' conception of learning includes Arrow's ideas on the conditions for improving the performance of workers in production processes through learning on the go (learning by
Factual knowledge (know-what) constitutes “objective” knowledge, it can be considered equivalent to what we normally call training and is related to the cognitive “body” that all categories of experts possess.
Scientific knowledge (know-why) refers to academic or professional knowledge that influences technological development and the pace and characteristics of its application in industries of any kind. In this case, the production and reproduction of knowledge takes place within organized processes, such as university teaching, scientific research, the development of specialized personnel, hiring, etc.
The know-how describes the ability to operate skillfully in different contexts (eg assess market prospects for a new product, or operate a machine tool). Practical knowledge is developed mainly at the individual level, but its importance is also evident if levels of cooperation are considered within an organization and even between several organizations.
Relational knowledge (know-who) is another type of knowledge whose importance is booming. It consists of a set of different capacities, in particular social capacities, that give access to and make it possible to use the knowledge that another person possesses, often through a combination of professional and personal networks.
Production capacity is defined based on the resources used to produce industrial goods at a given level of efficiency and combination of inputs: equipment (includes built-in technology), The definition of Lipshitz and Popper (2000) on learning mechanisms is taken, where “they are institutionalized arrangements and procedures that allow the organization to systematically collect, analyze, save, disseminate and use information relevant to the performance of the organization..
For Malecki (1997) learning refers to the process in which organizations, companies or individuals acquire technical and organizational knowledge and skills.
Production capacity is defined from the resources used to produce industrial goods at a given level of efficiency and combination of inputs: equipment (includes embedded technology), skills of the workforce (know-how and experience of and in the operation and administration), product and input specifications and the organizational system used (Bell and Pavitt, 1992)
For Bell and Pavit (1992, p. 4), Tacit Knowledge is defined as a set of rules that are acquired only with experience and are produced by people and institutions. An important part of managing technology involves having tacit knowledge, not codified.
Learning by doing: derived from experience, by doing; the execution of productive tasks generates an accumulation of knowledge and skills that allows the improvement of these tasks in the immediate future, Arrow (1962); Learning using: derived from the use of knowledge, the greater diffusion and adoption of a technology implies a greater learning and an improvement of it, Rosenberg (1982); Operational learning is derived from the introduction of changes, which can be minor or incremental technicians, through feedback systems; learning can be a consequence of training, hiring and research, Bell (1984); Learning by treatment, Fleck (1994) and Rosenbloom and Cusumano (1987); interaction learning, Lundvall (1988); learning by selling, Thompson (1989);appropriation learning, David (1993); inter-industry relationship learning, Malerba (1993) and failure learning, Bahrami and Evans (1995).
The term "tacit dimension of knowledge" was originally proposed by Michael Polanyi (1962). His basic assumption is that "more is known than can be said." There is a cognitive level that cannot always be expressed in words and linearly. In this dimension, which gives rise to the notions of practical knowledge, capacities, competences and expertise, knowledge constitutes a practical and theoretical set whose development and mastery take place through procedures that cannot be expressed in linear terms. For this reason, individual abilities are usually of a tacit order: "a person achieves skillful performance when he acts according to a set of rules, even if he does not recognize these as such" (Polanyi, 1962).
According to Jasso (2000), it manifests itself in its specific and cumulative nature, in its cost and risk because it has been subjected to uncertainty.
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