A conceptual framework for technological catch up of commercial turbofan engines in Iran based on Meta Synthesis approach

The aircraft system and its sub-systems, including the engine, are components of complex product systems that highly costly and technology-intensive. The purpose of this research is to provide a general model for explaining the factors affecting the Technological catch up of turbofan engines in Iran - as a complex product system- based on benchmarking the global experiences in this field. The research method in this study is qualitative Meta Synthesis. It was used the library method to collect the data, the Seventh-Step Process of Sandlouki and Barus Meta Synthesis approach to analyze the data and the Panel of Experts to validate and finalize the findings. The research population of the study includes all articles related to the topic of research. To do this, after designing research questions, a systematic search based on the related keywords - technology catch up, complex product systems, commercial turbofan engines – has been done Among the articles published between 1370 and 1397 on scientific databases such as Scopus, SIDs, IRANDOCs, ISCs, IEEEs, Science Direct, and also with the help of the Elmnet and Google scholar search engines. By reviewing 31 articles from 172 primary articles, researchers identified 11 dimensions and 92 components as key factors affecting the technological catch up of commercial turbofan engines. Based on these factors, a comprehensive framework for the technological catch up of turbofan engines in Iran has been presented and validated.