Knowledge acquisition in international strategic alliances among Malaysian manufacturing firms

This thesis examines the process of knowledge acquisition by Malaysian manufacturing firms through their involvement in international strategic alliances. The strategic alliances can be with or without equity involvement. Firms involved with a foreign partner with equity involvement are joint venture firms while non-equity involvement are firms that engaged in contractual agreements. Using empirical evidence from 65 international alliances gathered through a survey conducted in high-technology manufacturing sectors, several factors that influence the process of knowledge acquisition are examined. The factors are: learning capacity, experience, goals, active involvement and accessibility to the foreign knowledge. Censored regression analysis and ordered probit analysis are used to analyse the effects of these factors on knowledge acquisition and its determinant parts, and the effects of knowledge acquisition and its determinants on the performance of the alliances. A second questionnaire gathered evidence relating to the factors, which encouraged tacit knowledge transfer between the foreign and Malaysian partners in international alliances. The key findings of the study are: knowledge acquisition in international strategic alliances is influenced by five determining factors; learning capacity, experience, articulated goals, active involvement and accessibility; new technology knowledge, product development knowledge and manufacturing process knowledge are influenced differently by the determining factors; knowledge acquisition and its determinant factors have a significant impact on the firm’s performance; cultural differences tend to moderate the effect on the firm’s performance; acquiring tacit knowledge is not only influenced by the five determinant factors but also by other factors, such as dependency, accessibility, trust, manufacturing control, learning methods and organisational systems; Malaysian firms involved in joint ventures tend to acquire more knowledge than those involved in contractual agreements, but joint ventures also exhibit higher degrees of dependency than contractual agreements; and the presence of R&D activity in the Malaysian partner encourages knowledge acquisition, but the amount of R&D expenditure has no effect on knowledge acquisition.

Buyer-supplier relationships in advanced manufacturing technology acquisition and implementation : a study in Malaysia

This thesis reports the results of research into the connections between transaction attributes and buyer-supplier relationships (BSR) in advanced manufacturing technology (AMT) acquisitions and implementation. It also examines the impact of the different patterns of BSR on performance. Specifically, it addresses the issues of how the three transaction attributes; namely level of complexity, level of asset specificity, and level of uncertainty, can affect the relationships between the technology buyer and suppler in AMT acquisition and implementation, and then to see the impact of different patterns of BSR on the two aspect of performance; namely technology and implementation performance. In understanding the pohenomena, the study mainly draws on and integrates the literature of transaction cost economics theory,buyer-supplier relationships and advanced manufacturing technology as a basis of theoretical framework and hypotheses development.data were gathered through a questionnaire survey with 147 responses and seven semi-structured interviews of manufacturing firms in Malaysia. Quantitative data were analysed mainly using the AMOS (Analysis of Moment Structure) package for structural equation modeling and SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Science) for analysis of variance (ANOVA). Data from interview sessions were used to develop a case study with the intention of providing a richer and deeper understanding on the subject under investigation and to offer triangulation in the research process. he results of the questionnaire survey indicate that the higher the level of technological specificity and uncertainty, the more firms are likely to engage in a closer relationship with technology suppliers.However, the complexity of the technology being implemented is associated with BSR only because it is associated with the level of uncertainty that has direct impact upon BSR.The analysis also provides strong support for the premise that developing strong BSR could lead to an improved performance. However, with high levels of transaction attribute, implementation performance suffers more when firms have weak relationships with technology suppliers than with moderate and low levels of transaction attributes. The implications of the study are offered for both the academic and practitioner audience. The thesis closes with reports on its limitations and suggestions for further research that would address some of these limitations.

Acquisition and management of technology in Malaysian companies

This thesis is about the acquisition and diffusion of imported technology. Writers in the field of technology development in developing countries have always recognised that technical progress depends on the diffusion of imported technology and its applications to the provision of products and processes (Rosemberg, 1982). Despite the massive importation of technology by Malaysian companies, little effort has been made to study and understand the diffusion system in local companies. This study analyses: The problems associated with the acquisition of technology, highlighting the technology strategies adopted by the suppliers of technology; the diffusion pattern and key characteristics of the diffusion process; and major factors affecting the diffusion of technology. The policy implications are examined and the framework to manage the diffusion process within the enterprises is suggested. The findings indicated that the diffusion process is not one of passive acceptance but involves systematic efforts to acquire and diffuse the imported technology. A strong system of diffusion in companies had enabled a rapid diffusion of imported technology resulting in higher levels of technical capability. On the other hand, weakness in the company's diffusion system led to limited diffusion and slow technical progress. Characteristics of diffusion system are analysed and discussed extensively. The thesis attempts to develop the idea of `in-house system of diffusion' associated with the acquisition and development of imported technology. It argues for the development ofa stronger theoretical framework on the diffusion and development of technology particularly in countries like Malaysia which relies extensively on the importation of foreign technology.

Knowledge acquisition from L2 specialist texts

This research aims to investigate knowledge acquisition and concept formation in the domain of economics and business studies through a foreign language, English, from the very initial to the very final stage of development in the context of Higher Education in Turkey. It traces both the processes as well as the product of acquisition in order to provide a detailed picture of how knowledge acquisition occurs. It aims to explore ways in which the acquisition process can be facilitated and promoted while prospective students of the Department of Economics and Business Administration receive a language training programme, following the completion of which they will join their academic community which offers part of its courses through the English language. The study draws upon (some) theories of mental representation of knowledge, such as schema, frame and script. The concept of discourse community with its characteristics is investigated, enculturation of prospective students to acquire knowledge of their domain through L2 is explored, and the crucial role of the constructivist theory in relation to knowledge acquisition is highlighted. The present study was conducted through a process of enculturation taking place partly at the language centre of Çukurova University and partly at the target discourse community. The data utilised for initiating knowledge acquisition was obtained by establishing a corpus of economics and business texts, which the learners are expected to read during their academic courses utilising computerised technology. The method of think aloud protocols was used to analyse processes taking place in knowledge acquisition, while the product of what was acquired was investigated by means of written recall protocols. It has been discovered that knowledge acquisition operates on the basis of analogical and to a certain extent metaphorical reasoning. The evidence obtained from the think aloud protocols showed that neophytes were able to acquire fundamental concepts of their future domain by reaching the level of shared understanding with the members of their target community of the faculty. Diaries and questionnaire analyses demonstrated that enculturation facilitated learners' transition from the language centre into the target community. Analyses of the written recall protocols and examinations from the post-enculturation stage of the research showed that neophytes' academic performances in their target community were much higher than those of their non-enculturated counterparts. Processes learners go through and strategies they spontaneously make use of, especially while acquiring knowledge of a specific domain through L2 have so far remained unexplored research areas. The present research makes a potential contribution to the language and knowledge acquisition theories by examining closely and systematically the language and the strategies they employ in acquiring such knowledge. The research findings offer useful implications to English language teaching at language schools. Language teachers are provided with useful guidelines as to how they can provide prospective students of a particular academic community with an experience of acquiring fundamental concepts of their discipline before they become members of their target community.

The acquisition of French past tenses by tutored anglophone advanced learners : is aspect enough?

Following Andersen's (1986, 1991) study of untutored anglophone learners of Spanish, aspectual features have been at the centre of hypotheses on the development of past verbal morphology in language acquisition. The Primacy of Aspect Hypothesis claims that the association of any verb category (Aktionsart) with any aspect (perfective or imperfective) constitutes the endpoint of acquisition. However, its predictions rely on the observation of a limited number of untutored learners at the early stages of their acquisition, and have yet to be confirmed in other settings. The aim of the present thesis is to evaluate the explanatory power of the PAH in respect of the acquisition of French past tenses, an aspect of the language which constitutes a serious stumbling block for foreign learners, even those at the highest levels of proficiency (Coppieters 1987). The present research applies the PAH to the production of 61 anglophone 'advanced learners' (as defined in Bartning 1997) in a tutored environment. In so doing, it tests concurrent explanations, including the influence of the input, the influence of chunking, and the hypothesis of cyclic development. Finally, it discusses the cotextual and contextual factors that still provoke what Anderson (1991) terms "non-native glitches" at the final stage, as predicted by the PAH. The first part of the thesis provides the theoretical background to the corpus analysis. It opens with a diachronic presentation of the French past tense system focusing on present areas of competition and developments that emphasize the complexity of the system to be acquired. The concepts of time, grammatical aspect and lexical aspect (Aktionsart) are introduced and discussed in the second chapter, and a distinctive formal representation of the French past tenses is offered in the third chapter. The second part of the thesis is devoted to a corpus analysis. The data gathering procedures and the choice of tasks (oral and written film narratives based on Modern Times, cloze tests and acceptability judgement tests) are described and justified in the research methodology chapter. The research design was shaped by previous studies and consequently allows comparison with these. The second chapter is devoted to the narratives analysis and the third to the grammatical tasks. This section closes with a summary of discoveries and a comparison with previous results. The conclusion addresses the initial research questions in the light of both theory and practice. It shows that the PAH fails to account for the complex phenomenon of past tense development in the acquisitional settings under study, as it adopts a local (the verb phrase) and linear (steady progression towards native usage) approach. It is thus suggested that past tense acquisition rather follows a pendular development as learners reformulate their learning hypotheses and become increasingly able to shift from local to global cues and so to integrate the influence of cotext and context in their tense choice.

An integrated process for forming manufacturing technology acquisition decisions

The right manufacturing technology at the right time can enable an organisation to produce products that are cheaper, better, and made faster than those of the competition. Paradoxically, the wrong technology, or even the right technology poorly implemented, can be disastrous. The decision process through which practitioners acquire manufacturing technologies can significantly impact on their eventual capabilities and performance. This complete process has unfortunately received limited attention in previous studies. Therefore, the work presented in this paper has investigated leading research and industrial practices to create a formal and rational decision process, and then evaluated this through an extended and in-depth case study of a manufacturing technology acquisition. An analysis of previous literature, industrial practices, and the resulting decision process are all presented in this paper.

Spelling acquisition in English and Italian:a cross-linguistic study

We examined the spelling acquisition in children up to late primary school of a consistent orthography (Italian) and an inconsistent orthography (English). The effects of frequency, lexicality, length, and regularity in modulating spelling performance of the two groups were examined. English and Italian children were matched for both chronological age and number of years of schooling. Two-hundred and seven Italian children and 79 English children took part in the study. We found greater accuracy in spelling in Italian than English children: Italian children were very accurate after only 2 years of schooling, while in English children the spelling performance was still poor after 5 years of schooling. Cross-linguistic differences in spelling accuracy proved to be more persistent than the corresponding ones in reading accuracy. Orthographic consistency produced not only quantitative, but also qualitative differences, with larger frequency and regularity effects in English than in Italian children.

Utilising fiction to promote english language acquisition

Towards the end of the university stage, students residing in the United Arab Emirates and specialising in subjects other than English are expected- amongst other university requirements- to have acquired adequate communicative competence as well as a repertoire of critical thinking skills. Despite the efforts made within the field of teaching English to EFL university students in the country, the output gained in terms of acquired skills and competencies is still below expectations. The main concerns of the current thesis are, therefore, a) to investigate the factors which inhibit EFL university students’ progress in the areas of acquiring adequate communicative competence as well as critical thinking skills, and b) to propose a course book and pedagogic methods to improve students’ progress in the areas of acquiring adequate communicative competence as well as critical thinking skills. Believing in the essential role literature plays in enhancing critical thinking and promoting communicative competence on the part of EFL learners, the current study introduces a course, designed and implemented by the researcher: LEARN AND GAIN. The proposed course is fiction-based language teaching, adopting the view that literature is a resource rather than an object, thus advocating the use of literature as one of the main resources in foreign/second language acquisition. Investigating whether or not the proposed course was effective in promoting EFL university students’ communicative competence as well as enhancing their critical thinking skills, a study sample taken from the study population was selected. Adopting an experimental design, the research project involved two groups: experimental and control. The experimental group students were exposed to the proposed course whilst the control group students were exposed to a general English language course. To examine treatment effectiveness, the researcher set and administered a pre-post test. Divided into two main parts, communicative critical reading competence and communicative critical writing competence, the pre-post test measured subjects’ communicative critical reading competence and subjects’ communicative critical writing competence. In addition, a pre-post questionnaire was administered and a semi-structured interview was conducted involving the experimental group students, to gain an awareness of students’ attitudes towards learning literary texts in general, and the proposed course in particular. To examine issues of interest and relevance, gender differences: male vs. female, and university major: science vs. non-science, were also examined for enrichment purposes. For the purpose of gathering sufficient data about subjects’ achievements on the pre-post, the following statistical tests were conducted: Mann-Whitney test, and paired data t-test. Based on the statistical findings, the experimental group students’ performance on the communicative critical reading competence pre-post test and the communicative critical writing competence pre-post test was significantly better than their counterparts of the control group students. Speaking of gender differences in relation to language performance on the communicative critical reading competence pre-post test and the communicative critical writing competence pre-post test, no significant differences were cited. Neither did the researcher cite any significant performance differences between science/non-science students on the communicative critical reading competence pre-post test and the communicative critical writing competence pre-post test. As far as the questionnaire’s findings are concerned, the experimental group students’ responses to the post-questionnaire’s items were more positive than those of their responses to the pre-questionnaire’s, thus indicating some positive attitudes towards literature, which students possibly gained throughout the course of implementation. Relating the discussion to the interview’s results, students conveyed their satisfaction with the proposed course, emphasising that promoting English language skills through the use of literary texts was rewarding. In the light of findings and conclusions, a number of recommendations as well as implications have been proposed. The current study aimed to arrive at some appropriate suggestions to a number of enquiries, yet concluding with some areas of enquiry to be explored for further research.