International Transfer of Service Technology: An Exploratory Study of the Case of Supermarkets in China

The paper describes briefly some of the issues involved in the international transfer of service technology and the reasons why service industries are underdeveloped in China. In particular, the development of supermarkets in China has been chosen to illustrate some of the problems in the transfer of such an advanced technology in a centrally-planned, developing country. The paper ends with a discussion of the advantages of such transfers to China's present modernization process, and the role of foreign firms in the development of supermarkets as well as other service industries.