PEOPLE: International Journal of Social Sciences ISSN 2454-5899 © 2015 The author and GRDS Publishing. All rights reserved. Available Online at: http://grdspublishing.org/PEOPLE/people.html 1098 Syed Ali Fazal and Sazali Abdul Wahab Special Issue Vol.1 Issue 1, pp. 1098-1120 HOST-COUNTRY TRAITS, INTRA-FIRM TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER AND COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE: A CONCEPTUAL STUDY Syed Ali Fazal University Malaysia Kelantan, fazalsyedali@gmail.com Sazali Abdul Wahab University Malaysia Kelantan ______________________________________________________________________________ Abstract Technological innovations have emerged as crucially significant factor for sustaining market competition and achieving competitive advantage in the 21 st century. The Multinational Corporations (MNCs) as celebrities of innovation play significant role in diffusing technological knowledge throughout firms both nationally and internationally. Although numerous studies exist on technology transfer the majority of existing literature addresses the issues related to inter-firm transfer of technology only while the area related to intra-firm transfer of technology has been largely underexposed; study of which is believed to be ideal for fruitful exploration of profitability in technology transfer projects. Using data from MNCs in Malaysia the current study for the very first time would attempt to empirically find the effect of host-country traits on the performance of technology transferred by the MNCs and its subsequent impact on competitive advantage. Findings of this study are expected to contribute both theoretically in the body of knowledge and also in terms of practical implication for policy makers and MNCs and hence enriching the existing literature simultaneously. Keywords Host-Country, Multinational Corporations, Intra-Firm, Technology Transfer, Competitive Advantage __________________________________________________________________