Low-technology firms face an increasingly disruptive innovation landscape as new legislation and changing  market demands force them to dramatically reduce emission levels to become more sustainable. However,  successfully developing and implementing sustainable technologies frequently presupposes alliances between  low-technology firms (such as process industry companies) and high-tech firms (such as their specialized technology providers). Such alliances are asymmetric and problematic because of differences in approaches to
learning, knowledge bases, collaboration routines, and high cognitive distance between high- and lowtechnology firms. Against this background, we performed a multiple case study of six asymmetric alliances  operating in the food and food packaging sectors in the UK. The analysis reveals that technology distance  asymmetry, technology integration complexity, and innovation capability incompatibilities prohibit technology  transfer effectiveness. By mapping these themes across three phases of technology transfer, we identified a total  of nine unique problems that hamper technology transfer effectiveness and, therefore, risk delaying or distorting  the implementation of novel sustainable technology. The paper provides theoretical implications for the literature on innovation in LMT firms and for the literature on sustainability alliances along with practical implications for improving technology transfer between high-tech and low-tech firms considering climate change

Fuente:  Research Policy 53 (2024)