Reading: International Expansion for Knowledge Acquisition or Knowledge Acquisition for International Expansion. Kogut.Cotta de Mello, et al. 2019. Answer ONE of the guestions (A or B). A) Explain the symbiotic effect between internationalization process, technology acquisition and integration process. Be specific. Provide two examples. . . profitable to stoke our interest." Examples of such acquisitions included the 2014 acquisition of the German company KATT (technology for high-speed electric motors for the automotive industry) and the Chinese company Sinya (advanced electric motor technology for washers and dryers). In both acquisition cases, WEG's intent was to grant access to a new technology that would otherwise take years to develop in. house and incorporate it to its knowledge base but also; and to access the customers of those technologies, improving its commercial reach (outcome of RKT process). WEG management considered technology to be so strategic that the firm developed its own concept called WEGnology, defined as the firm's way of combining technology with processes and people to achieve continuous growth. A technology center located at headquarters coordinated the technology processes, with the following mission stated on its inauguration plaque "To extract, absorb and fixate technology: a fundamental trinomial for authentic industrial development." Among its more than 31,000 employees, the company had around 3,000 engineers in 2018, more than 1,000 of whom worked at the 32 R&D centers (21 in Brazil and 11 abroad). Additionally, the company had developed numerous partnerships with universities over time, both domestically and abroad - with 19 centers located in Germany, England, the US, Canada, Switzerland, Austria, Portugal , Sweden and India Each partnership had a specific technological goal, according to the center's expertise WEG usually had its own R&D centers located close to these knowledge centers. The firm invested around 3 per cent of its revenues per year in R&D and it had a record of offering intensive employee training (over 90,000 employee participations in training activities and 26 million hours of training per year) and customer training. In addition, WEG had sponsored many of its engineers for them to eam advanced degrees at top universities abroad, and it, in tum, hosted PhD candidates from foreign universities thus fostering a collaborative environment that, according to Schmelzer, resulted in WEG's engineers being regarded as among the best in the world." In addition to learning from the companies it acquired operating internationally afforded WEG the opportunity to learn from competitors, suppliers and customers abroad. According to Da Silva, much learning and RKT took place 1 To deal with demanding clients ...), the company had to invest a lot in R&D and be in csempliance with certification bodies. But the more we increased our knowledge, the more we improved our industrial processes and the efficiency of our products. And Teaching highly advanced technological stages made us stronger domestically, which was actually the greatest benefit of having started to operate almal sa carly personal interview) Every time we expected, we got stronger domestically. Why? Because we discovered new suppliers, we competed against new competitors and we had to comply with stricter regubitions 1._ these created a knowledge base for Sarding what our competitors (abroad] unknowingly offered us for free. (Da Silva.2017. p. 87 11 TU Reading: International Expansion for Knowledge Acquisition or Knowledge Acquisition for International Expansion. Kogut.Cotta de Mello, et al. 2019. Answer ONE of the guestions (A or B). A) Explain the symbiotic effect between internationalization process, technology acquisition and integration process. Be specific. Provide two examples. . . profitable to stoke our interest." Examples of such acquisitions included the 2014 acquisition of the German company KATT (technology for high-speed electric motors for the automotive industry) and the Chinese company Sinya (advanced electric motor technology for washers and dryers). In both acquisition cases, WEG's intent was to grant access to a new technology that would otherwise take years to develop in. house and incorporate it to its knowledge base but also; and to access the customers of those technologies, improving its commercial reach (outcome of RKT process). WEG management considered technology to be so strategic that the firm developed its own concept called WEGnology, defined as the firm's way of combining technology with processes and people to achieve continuous growth. A technology center located at headquarters coordinated the technology processes, with the following mission stated on its inauguration plaque "To extract, absorb and fixate technology: a fundamental trinomial for authentic industrial development." Among its more than 31,000 employees, the company had around 3,000 engineers in 2018, more than 1,000 of whom worked at the 32 R&D centers (21 in Brazil and 11 abroad). Additionally, the company had developed numerous partnerships with universities over time, both domestically and abroad - with 19 centers located in Germany, England, the US, Canada, Switzerland, Austria, Portugal , Sweden and India Each partnership had a specific technological goal, according to the center's expertise WEG usually had its own R&D centers located close to these knowledge centers. The firm invested around 3 per cent of its revenues per year in R&D and it had a record of offering intensive employee training (over 90,000 employee participations in training activities and 26 million hours of training per year) and customer training. In addition, WEG had sponsored many of its engineers for them to eam advanced degrees at top universities abroad, and it, in tum, hosted PhD candidates from foreign universities thus fostering a collaborative environment that, according to Schmelzer, resulted in WEG's engineers being regarded as among the best in the world." In addition to learning from the companies it acquired operating internationally afforded WEG the opportunity to learn from competitors, suppliers and customers abroad. According to Da Silva, much learning and RKT took place 1 To deal with demanding clients ...), the company had to invest a lot in R&D and be in csempliance with certification bodies. But the more we increased our knowledge, the more we improved our industrial processes and the efficiency of our products. And Teaching highly advanced technological stages made us stronger domestically, which was actually the greatest benefit of having started to operate almal sa carly personal interview) Every time we expected, we got stronger domestically. Why? Because we discovered new suppliers, we competed against new competitors and we had to comply with stricter regubitions 1._ these created a knowledge base for Sarding what our competitors (abroad] unknowingly offered us for free. (Da Silva.2017. p. 87 11 TU