Investigation of Priority and Typology of challenges Affecting Technology Acquisition in Defense Industries

Identifying the problems of the acquisition of technology plays a critical role in the future position of a firm. Therefore, analyzing the obstacles to the process of the  technology acquisition is very important. This issue is even more vital due to the technological market limitation and complexities in the field of the defense industry. Therefore, the prioritization of challenges improves the acquisition process. This research selects a mixed qualitative-quantitative method (based on literature review and the expert review for identifying the challenges of acquiring advanced defense technologies and then the fuzzy DEMATEL method to analyze them. In the next step, a network of causal relationships with different ranks is presented based on the degree of the influence and effects of technology acquisition. According to the results, "risks arising from the cooperation with other institutions" are the most, and "internal legal issues" are the least effected ranks. On the other hand, the international sanctions” are the most influential factors in the process of technology acquisition in the field of defense and "the financial agreements, the method to determine the shares of the partners and the agreed amounts and the exiting risks” are the least influential factors. These findings pave the way to design and implement  more salient policies and programs.