TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER CONCEPTUAL INVESTIGATION IN THE AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY USING THE GROUNDED THEORY IN TWO CASE STUDIES OF PEUGEOT 301 AND 2008

After accepting the JCPOA and despite Peugeot's absence from cooperation with Iran Khodro for several years, the company, with the aim of transferring technology, re-launched a joint project with Peugeot to produce two products, 301 and 2008, but like the bitter experiences of the past, This technology transfer project also failed; Therefore, in this article, the issue of technology transfer in the automotive industry is conceptually studied using the Grounded Theory of the foundation and the factors influencing it. In this article, from the beginning, technology transfer is assumed to be equivalent to knowledge transfer, and knowledge transfer is criticized in two categories: explicit and implicit knowledge. Based on the research background, the effective factors in technology transfer are classified into 7 groups. Then, the main questions for the project were collected in the interviews. From the interviews, 42 phrases called "conceptual perception" were obtained. The conceptual findings were then divided into 9 "semantic categories" and "root of weakness" in each semantic category. The results show that low competitive pressure in the Iranian automotive market has led to a monopoly, so that Peugeot Automotive Group has not transferred any of its advanced parts technology to Iranian suppliers of their parts.