Customizing Technology Transfer: Lessons to be Learned from Comparative Cross Cultural Studies

This article highlights the old wisdom that technology is socially constructed. By using examples from a study of how German machinery manu-facturing firms and North American user industries act and think while developing and implementing advanced technology, and reflecting on these examples to elucidate Swedish manufacturing culture, the study highlights how knowledge about industrial behaviour can only be made visible by comparative studies, since only in relief - in contrast with something different - can the ‘taken for granted’ behaviour be identified. It is argued that identifying the prevailing industrial behaviour in a region opens up the possibility not only of identifying different strategies in inter-firm contacts but also of mastering them. Engineering that could ‘customize’ not only technology but also the interaction with customers and differentiate the service for different markets would have a competitive advantage.