TECHNOLOGICAL SPIN-OFF - ITS MECHANISMS AND NATIONAL CONTEXTS

This article seeks strategic implications of spin-off from mission-oriented-in particular, defense-related-technology programs. Because the United States has unmatched military technological capabilities, the article first focuses on the US experience. To understand how a country's size, development stage, and economic system may affect technological spin-off, the experiences of Sweden, Israel, and the USSR are briefly examined. These three countries have all committed huge national resources to military R&D and have achieved high technological levels. By investigating several fields-in particular, semiconductors, computers, nuclear power, aircraft, and systems technology-the paper identifies three critical mechanisms as well as two increasingly unfavorable trends in the US context. Using perspectives relating to the characteristics of technology, several rules to grapple with the logic of spin-off are suggested. But most other countries could not expect such a significant contribution from spin-off as the United States. Small countries usually have no slack to promote spin-off. Developing countries may benefit from spin-off when their civilian industry is relatively underdeveloped while military technology, mainly introduced from abroad, is rather advanced. In centrally planned economies, spin-off tends to be distorted or stymied for lack of a vigorous market-oriented civilian industry to capitalize on opportunities as they arise.