Technology acquisition and product development performance in the electronics industry in South Africa

Much research with regards to the choice of technology acquisition modes was done in developed countries, but not in developing and emerging economies such as South Africa. Moreover, research on the linkage between technology acquisition modes and product development performance is lacking in the literature. This empirical study investigates the linkage between these three groups of variables, namely: technology acquisition modes (ranging from purely internal to purely external and combinational in between), factors that affect the choice of the modes (14 were identified from the literature review), product development performance measures (the percent of products which met their revenue targets, the percent of products which met their product cost targets, the percent of products which met their launch date targets, the percent of products which met their product quality targets, and the percent of products which met their development cost targets). The units of analysis are the electronics engineering companies in South Africa. A framework was developed and data were collected using questionnaires. A total of 30 companies participated in this study. Correlations and regressions were performed to explore the linkages amongst these variables. Several statistically positive relationships were identified to support the hypotheses in the framework.