The Determinants of Firm-level Technological Performances - A Study on the Indian Capital Goods Sector

The need to improve competitiveness of the Indian Capital Goods Sector is more now than ever before, owing to the increasingly liberalized Indian economic policies. Appreciating the importance of Firm-level Technological Performances (FTPs) to effectively compete in the market, the study focused on understanding them in greater detail. The study has attempted to disaggregate the FTPs into four major components namely, technology acquisition, technology implementation, technology utilization, and technology creation performances. It has selected several variables from the firm's internal and external environments to examine their relationships with these four performances. Based on the empirical data from a large sample of firms in the sector, the study has found that each of these performances has its own specific set of determinants, which come from both the environments. The study concludes that the disaggregation of FTPs not only helps us to understand the problem better, but permits us to know which variables are to be fine-tuned to improve which performance. It also suggests that the issues related to the effective interfacing of institutional infrastructure in the economy with firms are worth investigating.