| In a technology driven world, technology acquisition decisions as to when and which new technologies to acquire are becoming increasingly critical for firms to survive and grow. The issue of technology acquisition is addressed with three different focuses in the current dissertation.; In the first essay, we extend the results of some existing literature. Existing literature suggests that, in an oligopoly, identical firms acquire the same technology at two different dates under Nash or pre-commitment equilibrium, which assumes infinite information lag between two firms. The set of equilibrium dates turn out to be different under subgame perfect or pre-emption equilibrium that assumes zero information lag. We show that allowance for asymmetry between firms leads to the same equilibrium dates under Nash and subgame perfect equilibrium.; In the second essay, a two-period technology game is considered to study the effect of expectations regarding technological progress on a firm's technology adoption decision in a duopoly. It is shown that expectations of better future technology retard adoption of the currently available technology. Uncertain future progress is shown to have either no effect or negative effect on the adoption of the currently available technology when a Nash or open-loop equilibrium holds. However, under subgame perfection, uncertainty may actually encourage adoption of the current technology, contrary to what literature suggests.; In the third essay, a stochastic mathematical programming framework is used to build a decision model to solve for technology decisions facing rapid and uncertain technological progress. In our scenario-based approach, we allow uncertainties in both technological developments as well as in output product market demands. Furthermore, the acquisition costs of the technologies are assumed to be concave to reflect economies of scale in acquisition. An efficient procedure to solve the problem is proposed and implemented. Our numerical results show that the expectation of future technologies impacts the acquisition of the current technology in a negative way, and highlights the importance of incorporating expectations in a technology acquisition model. |
