Exploring the Process Technology Acquisition Decision Making in Multinational and Domestic Firms: A Multi-case Study in the Peruvian Market

this research contributes by exploring the context of a country in South America in the analysis of a broad range of factors which affect process technology acquisition decision making - whether the process technology is developed in house or externally acquired from other sources- and the understanding of the reasons for the decision review (triggers). Although this area has mainly been studied in developed countries, little research has studied it in latecomers markets which heavily engage in adoptions and assimilations of incumbent process technologies from advanced economies. Based on literature, we propose a theoretical framework which identifies relevance, technology, time pressure, internal capability and environment factors that influences the decision-making. This is discussed and tested by using 17 process technology acquisition case studies in 5 Peruvian firms and 4 international subsidiaries based in US, Japan and Germany. The results show that development cost and technology familiarity are the most significant between internal and external process technology acquisition, and address connection between the process technology acquisition decision making and the company's geographic origin and level of experience in internal developments. Finally, we present a discussion of the meanings of results and conclusions with implications, limitations and futures directions.