Technological strategies of successful Latin American biotechnological firms

Abstract

This paper presents the results of the analysis of the technological strategies of eight Latin American biotech firms. There is little literature on strategies of follower firms in developing countries in high-technology sectors. For that reason, the authors undertook case studies of firms of six countries of Latin America that share the characteristics of being successful in the market place while adopting technology-follower strategies. The analysis considers five dimensions that, according to the literature on the management of technology, constitute the basic benchmarks of the strategy. These dimensions include innovating activities of the firm to improve, its position on the market; orientation of research and dominant technological goals; technology sources used by the firm to acquire its critical technologies; level of technological investments to acquire and/or develop technologies; and organizational mechanisms to manage technological functions of the firm. Results of this study clearly show that Latin American firms can sustain competitive strategies on the intelligent management, combining in-house skills with excellent capabilities to locate, acquire and assimilate external technologies.