2022 Volume 31 Issue 1 Pages 141-157
In technical cooperation, the successful transfer of technologies and organisational practices to the organisations of developing countries is essential. It is worth researching how development cooperation practitioners can achieve this. However, research on this theme seems to be scarce. Only a few papers in the Journal of International Development Studies have dealt with this subject. The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) conducted investigative studies on technical transfer to some extent until around 2000, but not afterwards. Meanwhile, in the field of International Human Resource Management (IHRM), there are many studies dealing with the transfer of organisational practices from a multinational corporation (MNC) parent in advanced economies to subsidiaries in developing counties. This is because MNCs must standardise the quality of their services and goods regardless of the subsidiaries' locations to be competitive in the rapidly globalising business environment. The current paper reviews the development of technical transfer (or ‘gijutsu-iten’) research at JICA. Then, it introduces four assertions in IHRM research regarding the transfer of organisational practices that are useful for development cooperation practitioners and researchers. These are:(1) rules and policies are easily transferred, but not practices;(2) codification helps the transfer of organisational practices, or at least their forms;(3) the forms of organisational practices are transferrable, but not their hidden meanings; and (4) transferring only forms is not necessarily meaningless.
