Do subsidiaries of foreign MNEs invest more in R&D than domestic firms?

Despite the growing involvement of multinational enterprises (MNEs) in foreign-based research and development (R&D), there has been little research comparing R&D investments of subsidiaries of foreign MNEs to domestic firms. Subsidiaries of foreign MNEs enjoy advantages that help them compete against domestic firms. However, when deciding on R&D investments, these advantages exert competing influences on their R&D investment decision. On the one hand, better access to and transfer of knowledge and technologies from the MNE and other subsidiaries and centers of excellence may encourage the subsidiary of a foreign MNE to invest less in R&D relative to a domestic firm. On the other hand, better access to sources of capital through the MNE and other subsidiaries may induce the subsidiary to invest more in R&D in comparison to domestic firms. We find that subsidiaries of foreign MNEs invest less in total R&D than domestic firms. The reason is that they invest less in external R&D than domestic firms; however, they have similar internal R&D investments compared to domestic firms. These findings support the notion that the transfer of technology and knowledge from other parts of the MNE acts as a substitute for the purchase of external R&D while internal R&D acts as a complement to the technology and knowledge transferred from other parts of the MNE.     

R&D synergy between local and foreign-owned enterprises in post-communist economies

This study examines how internal research and development (R&D), external knowledge acquisition, and R&D contracted with other companies interact in local and foreign-owned enterprises in post-communist economies. A large sample of firm-level data from the Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey (BEEPS) across 26 post-communist countries (including European Union (EU) members and non-EU states of Eastern Europe, Caucasian countries, and Central Asian countries) and country-level data from the Global Innovation Index and the International Property Rights Index were used. The findings show that enterprises with majority foreign ownership are relatively more likely to acquire external R&D. We demonstrate that the R&D behavior of enterprises with majority foreign ownership and local firms are interrelated, that is, we find a synergy effect. According to the results, decisions on internal R&D and the purchase of external knowledge for enterprises with majority foreign ownership are similar to those of local firms. However, enterprises with foreign ownership contract R&D with other companies more often if local firms conduct internal R&D. These results indicate the presence of knowledge spillover and cross-learning effects in both types of enterprises in post-communist countries. Finally, we find that the national innovation environment is not significant for the R&D intensity of enterprises with majority foreign ownership, which suggests their high dependence on the parent structures of multinational enterprises.     

Multinationality, foreignness and institutional distance in the relation between R&D and productivity

This paper empirically examines to what extent being foreign and part of a multinational affects the endogenous relation between R&D and productivity. Our findings indicate that multinationals obtain in general higher R&D returns. Also, there is a negative foreignness effect in that domestic-owned multinationals outperform foreign subsidiaries. However, these effects are somehow moderated by the institutional distance between the home and host countries. These results, obtained for a panel of UK firms, are largely consistent with a set of hypotheses derived from the institutional and international business theories.     

Characteristics of research and development performing firms in Canadian manufacturing

The purpose of this paper is to examine some of the salient characteristics of R&D performing firms in Canadian manufacturing. The paper begins by presenting a brief overview of recent trends in R&D in the Canadian economy. The next section analyzes the main characteristics of those firms which undertake research and development activities in Canadian manufacturing industries. Various aspects are examined in this section including the R&D expenditure patterns of industries in the research-intensive and non-research-intensive sectors, R&D by size of firm and by size of program, levels of R&D intensity in terms of small, medium and large R&D performing firms. The importance of foreign ownership and its implication for the level of R&D activity is also considered. The paper concludes by summarizing the highlights of R&D performing firms and draws some implications for the structure of Canadian manufacturing based on the findings.     

What determines overseas R&D activities? The case of Japanese multinational firms

This paper explores what factors determine the nature, extent, and location of Japanese multinationals’ R&D activities abroad. Taking advantage of a rich micro-level dataset from the survey on Japanese overseas subsidiaries, the study distinguishes between two types of overseas R&D: basic/applied research and development/design. We find several differences between the determinants of those R&D activities. These differences confirm the view that basic/applied research of overseas subsidiaries aims at the exploitation of foreign advanced knowledge, whereas their development/design activities are mostly influenced by the market size of the host country. Our results provide a convincing and comprehensive explanation of the geographical distribution of overseas R&D by Japanese MNEs.     

What determines the location choice of R&D activities by multinational firms?

We analyse 446 location decisions of R&D activities by multinational firms incorporated in the European Union over 1999–2006. Our results suggest that on average, the location probability of a representative R&D foreign affiliate increased with agglomeration economies from foreign R&D activities, human capital, proximity to centres of research excellence and the research and innovation capacity of the region. Further, our evidence suggests that in comparison to European multinational firms, the effects of patents intensity and proximity to centres of research excellence were stronger in the case of North American multinational firms. While government R&D expenditure intensity increased the probability of location of R&D activities by European multinational firms in the region, it did not have a significant effect on the probability of location of R&D activities by North American multinational firms.     

Intellectual property infringements due to R&D abroad? A comparative analysis between firms with international and domestic innovation activities

This paper aims to analyse the risk of intellectual property (IP) infringements by competitors from abroad and in particular to consider whether this risk is higher for international innovating firms. We distinguish three different types of IP infringements from abroad: the usage of firms’ technical inventions, product piracy, and copying of corporate names and designs. Our analysis rests on the German data from the Europe-wide Community Innovation Survey (CIS). We use a unique data set of about 900 observations, which are retrieved from two survey waves. While the earlier wave contains information about international and domestic innovation activities, the later wave reports IP infringements. In a second analysis, the likelihood of infringements from innovation host countries and no-innovation host countries abroad is examined. Before the empirical analysis, an exploratory study was carried out in China with interviews of German firms with innovation activities in China and with a legal advisor for small and medium-sized German enterprises. The results show that firms with international R&D activities are increasing their chances of losing technological knowledge to their local competitors abroad. R&D activities in countries with weak intellectual property rights increase the risk for all types of IP infringements compared to domestic R&D activities. Infringements by competitors from the host country are driven by the production of new produces in this country. Export intensity is the major driver of infringements from no-innovation host countries. R&D activities in China and North America also increase the risk of an infringement. However, firms that innovate only in their home country experience significantly more product piracy cases than international innovating firms.     

Overseas R&D, knowledge sourcing, and patenting: an empirical study of Japanese R&D investment in the US

This paper purports to study the contribution of R&D at home and abroad to the firm’s inventive activity, using a sample of 137 Japanese multinationals. The empirical analysis relates the number of inventions in Japan and that in the US, as measured by the number of patents issued by the USPTO, to the parent’s R&D, the US subsidiaries’ R&D, the presence of R&D in Europe, the firm’s experience in the US, entry mode, and industry dummies. In addition, to study the subsidiary’s role in sourcing local technological knowledge, we construct indices of local technological strength of the state in which the subsidiary is located. The results, most importantly, indicate that these indices positively contribute to inventions at home and in the US among Type R firms, whose R&D subsidiaries mainly aim to research, suggesting that knowledge sourcing is an important function of these subsidiaries and locational choice is important for this purpose. These results do not hold among Type S firms, whose R&D subsidiaries mainly aim to support local manufacturing and sales activities.     

Intellectual property rights,non-market considerations and foreign R&D investments

Prior research has focused on how firms use a variety of organizational mechanisms to protect their R&D investments from misappropriation risks in foreign countries. Little is known, however, about how firms can rely on non-market factors to induce preferential treatment by host government authorities, thereby protecting their intellectual property overseas. In this paper, we investigate two such non-market factors, one at the country level, the other at the firm level, that are likely to influence the choice of where firms locate their innovation activities: host country inclination towards the firm's home country and the firm's political capabilities, respectively. We thus examine how IPR policies and non-market factors interact in protecting firm innovation from misappropriation and in making countries more attractive for innovation-related activities. We find support for our predictions in a sample of 1,341 foreign R&D investments made by 163 firms from 14 home countries over the period 2003–2016.     

Effects of R&D and networking on the export decision of Japanese firms

This paper examines how internal R&D intensity and external networking channels are related with the firm's export decision, based on a large firm-level data set covering all manufacturing industries in Japan without any firm-size threshold. Internal R&D is not the only determinant of exporting, while it is strongly related with exports in the science-based sector. Collaborations with other firms on joint projects and operations of subsidiaries overseas are significantly linked to exports of large-sized firms, while affiliations with business associations and R&D intensity are critical for small-sized firms to export. Connections with computer networks have a weaker impact.     

Unravelling the drivers of technological innovations in the Czech Republic: Do international technological linkages matter?

This study aims to investigate the main factors driving technological innovation within firms in the manufacturing and service sectors of the Czech Republic. We apply a binary logistic regression model to cross-sectional data from 502 firms, obtained from the World Bank Enterprise Survey. The results of our empirical investigation show that certain elements of the business environment, such as the tax rate, serve as significant obstacles to firms’ product innovations. The results also confirm that international technological linkages—measured by international quality certificates and foreign technology licenses—affect technological innovations. Moreover, we found that internal R&D activities positively impact technological innovation across all sectors; contrarily, we found that process innovation in the manufacturing sector is positively influenced by foreign technology licenses and business association membership. Process innovations in the service sector are positively correlated with external R&D and financing from banking institutions. Finally, business association membership does not positively influence technological innovation in the service sector. Our findings have salient implications for firm managers, policymakers, and scholars aiming to explore and improve innovation outcomes in transitional economies.     

Canadian R&D abroad management practices

In the 1980s, Canadian industrial R&D abroad has grown substantially. In 1995, R&D expenditures by Canadian affiliates, only in the United States, represented some US$1.4 billion and employed some 6300 persons. Nearly 60 Canadian-owned and -controlled corporations conduct overseas R&D, mostly in the US, Western Europe, Japan, and Australia. Canadian corporations are performing commercial R&D abroad in order to support their manufacturing subsidiaries and to come closer to customers and markets. A secondary motivation is to hire skilled personnel, monitor foreign technological development and increase the inflow of new ideas into the corporation. They also chose friendly socio-political environments from a regulatory point of view. Technology transfer and adaptation to local markets is also an important mission of the foreign R&D establishment. Foreign R&D activities of Canadian firms are fairly decentralized and autonomous. Most of the foreign subsidiaries undertook R&D abroad before they were acquired by the Canadian corporation; also the number of Canadian managers was reduced and the R&D projects were usually decided in the affiliate. Three main types of expatriate R&D were found: a majority of the subsidiaries were producing goods in the same or related industries as in Canada (such as machines, transportation equipment or housing equipment). A second group of firms were vertically integrated firms, that conducted process research in Canada and advanced materials and final products research abroad, closer to the markets for this type of goods; they were active in the chemical and metal industries. Only one truly global corporation was found, with an international division of labor among its many foreign laboratories. The degree of autonomy varied across the three types of expatriate R&D units. In the last 10 years, the internationalization of industrial research and development has increased very rapidly. Foreign-affiliated corporations operating in the United States represented some 9.3% of all company-funded R&D in that country in 1987, and close to 18% in 1995 (Dalton and Serapio, in this issue). Similarly, foreign R&D expenditures by US-affiliated companies abroad have more than tripled. Canadian industrial R&D abroad has grown at a similar pace. It now includes over 100 research facilities owned by some 60 Canadian corporations, with subsidiaries in the United States, western Europe, Japan, Australia, and several developing countries (China, Brazil, India, Mexico, and Turkey). However, little is known about the characteristics of this foreign R&D: missions, managerial practices, budgets or innovative activity. This study is the first to present original data from a survey of these facilities, complemented by secondary material from annual reports and the financial and technical press. It follows a previous study of Canadian patents abroad, which concluded that diversification into related activities was the overseas strategy of Canadian multinational corporations (MNCs) with foreign R&D activities [Niosi, J., 1997. The globalization of Canadian R&D, Management International Review 37 (4) (in print).]. The first section of this paper presents (1) a short summary of some relevant literature on the management of foreign R&D, (2) the design of the study, (3) the results, and (4) a comparison of theories with Canadian data. It offers conclusions about the existence of three distinctive types of internationalization in Canadian R&D, each with different strategies and outcomes.     

MNCs’ offshore R&D networks in host country's regional innovation system: The case of Taiwan-based firms in China

China has become a hot spot of R&D internationalization and a growing number of Taiwan-based firms have indeed set up R&D units in China. Taking into account China's substantial regional variations in economic development, innovation capacity, and knowledge productivity, such notions as regional innovation system (RIS) and local innovative milieu may become more relevant to the study on relationships between China and its inward R&D internationalization. Therefore, the key issue for this paper is what locational advantages of an RIS within a host country affect the network linkages and networking strategy of multinational corporations’ (MNCs’) offshore R&D units. The paper aims to enrich the current understanding of R&D internationalization in several ways. First, the paper attempts to examine the R&D networking underlying R&D internationalization by Taiwan-based firms in China, with particular reference to the sub-national level inside China. Second, the paper tries to establish a link between the literature of R&D internationalization and that of RIS, with a modified version of Dunning's eclectic paradigm. Efforts are made to map the relationship between foreign subsidiaries’ local R&D networks and their host RISs inside China. Third, the paper takes advantage of a government databank to adopt a quantitative approach, the Seemingly Unrelated Bivariate Probit Regression model, with foreign subsidiaries as the unit of analysis, to highlight the role played by some aspects of the RIS in determining the local R&D networking of Taiwanese subsidiaries in China. Our evident shows that MNCs’ offshore R&D units that purse home-based technology exploitation strategy, the mainstream strategy regarding the developing host country, tend to be located in a host region with a strong knowledge application and exploitation subsystem, while an RIS with a strong knowledge generation and diffusion subsystem, within such a developing country as China, may induce MNCs’ local R&D units to pursue home-base technology augmenting strategy. On balance, not only the location choice but also the local R&D linkages of MNCs’ offshore subsidiaries are related to appropriate fits between the RIS and the subsidiaries’ innovation network inside the host country.     

Investigating the effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) on Croatian business

Technological innovation plays a critical role in economic growth. The most advanced and new technologies are created by leading firms in developed countries. Global expansion, strategic outsourcing or off-shoring in leading companies has been growing to enrich their competitive advantage, while technology transfer of leading firms has been of more interest to emerging or developing countries for catching up and following the trajectory of economic growth proved in developed countries. Among various channels to acquire new technologies from leading firms, foreign direct investments (FDI) is one of the most effective channels through which technology can be transferred to subsidiaries in emerging markets. However, empirical study on the roles of technology transfer and the feedback loop from FDI remains still scarce. Thus, the purpose of this study is to analyze the effects of FDI on businesses in partial or complete foreign ownership, with a special emphasis on technology transfer, and to assess the impact of foreign companies on domestic firm performance through technology transfer from foreign companies. This paper aims at investigating the investment climate for foreign investments and intensifying technology transfers and innovations in the Croatian economy. 145 firms responded to the survey we conducted for foreign investment enterprises in Croatia. Structural equation model is employed to examine the hypotheses with respect to effects of FDI on innovation activities of domestic Croatian firms. This study identified critical factors affecting technology innovation to Croatian firms. The results provide empirical evidence that the innovation activities in subsidiaries have a positive influence toward technology transfer from multinational corporations.     

Does innovativeness matter for international competitiveness in developing countries?: The case of Turkish manufacturing industries

We examine the determinants of export performance of firms in the Turkish manufacturing industry. Prominent differences show up between innovator and non-innovator firms in terms of the impacts of such variables as firm size, advertisement intensities, ownership structures, and composition of employees. Importance of innovations and R&D activities, conduciveness of capital intensity, and insignificance of the real wage are meaningful as far as a rational international competition policy is concerned. Results are suggestive of a technology-oriented and capital-formative development path, if Turkey is to come up with the international competitive standards.     

Convergence and polarization in global income levels: a review of recent results on the role of international technology diffusion

We review the recent literature on technological change and diffusion to shed new light on the evolution of the world’s cross-country income distribution. Technology is viewed as non-rival knowledge in the sense that firms in more than one country can simultaneously use it. R&D investments generate often also a return outside the innovating firm itself; these knowledge externalities are called technology spillovers. We emphasize that technology is to some extent tacit, and technology diffusion often involves the face-to-face interaction of people. Our paper reviews the evidence on whether international trade, foreign direct investment, and other cross-border activities are important for technology diffusion.     

On the innovativeness of foreign affiliates: Evidence from companies in The Netherlands

In examining the distinctive contributions of foreign subsidiaries and domestic firms to innovative performance in Dutch manufacturing, the paper shows that foreign ownership is an important factor in explaining inter-firm differences affecting innovativeness. It characterizes innovativeness by distinguishing between products that are new to the firm (‘imitative’ innovations), and those products that are new to the market (‘real’ innovations). It uses firm-level data for 4780 firms which took part in the Community Innovation Survey (CIS-2) for 1996 in The Netherlands. It concludes that foreign subsidiaries are more innovative, they are more likely to introduce ‘imitative’ as well as ‘real’ innovations compared to domestic firms. In comparison with the population of innovative companies, however, there is greater heterogeneity among foreign subsidiaries, i.e. they are not more likely to introduce ‘real’ innovations if they cannot utilize knowledge transfer from an associated company.     

企业所有权、内外部知识网络选择和创新绩效——基于中国ICT产业的实证研究

基于知识来源的视角,以中国ICT产业为例,检验了企业所有权对内外部知识网络选择和创新绩效的影响,以及内外部知识网络对企业所有权与创新绩效之间关系的调节作用。研究结果表明,内资企业和外资企业在内外部知识网络选择上存在差异,内资企业总部和独立企业比外资企业的子公司更善于开展本土创新合作,内资企业总部比外资企业的子公司具有更高的内部研发投入;而外资企业的子公司比独立企业更善于开展国际创新合作和技术采购;内资企业和外资企业在利用公司内部网络上没有显著差异。内资企业的创新绩效优于外资企业的子公司,而且不同所有权类型的企业选择不同的内外部知识网络对创新绩效的影响存在差异。     

Research, development, and firm growth. Empirical evidence from European top R&D spending firms

Following recent literature, we present a model of endogenous firm growth with R&D investment as one of the main mechanisms of growth. Our study evidences a positive effect of R&D intensity on the sales growth by using OLS, quantile regressions, and GMM system estimators for a sample of 754 European firms for the 2003-2007 period. We also find this association is more intense in high-growth firms and is especially significant when referring to high-technology sectors. This paper gives empirical support to those recommendations from policy makers and business leaders for maintaining the R&D expenditures especially in high-technology sectors even when facing a recession.     

R&D co-operation and innovation a microeconometric study on French firms

The scope of this paper is to report new empirical evidence on the determinants of R&D co-operation. Indeed, the literature on the capabilities of firms emphasises the role of knowledge in the performance and evolution of firms who use knowledge developed in others to build their own knowledge capital. R&D co-operation between firms is one of the many strategies by which this knowledge may be transmitted. Several theoretical models have stressed that R&D co-operation is more likely when the level of spillovers is high. While this supposition is used in many theoretical models, it has rarely been tested before. Our results do not lend strong support to this intuition. Indeed, our spillover variables (national pure spillovers, national rent spillovers and imports of machine tools), which were supposed to match the theoretical notion of spillovers used in these theoretical models have a positive but not a significant role when explaining R&D co-operation. The R&D co-operation increases with size and with R&D intensity, but not with market share. It also increases with the budget spent on paying license fees and on acquiring patents and labour from foreign firms. In this study, we also analyse the determinants of innovation. In more precise terms, we compare the effects of R&D co-operation to those played by traditional internal factors and those exerted by external, pure and rent spillovers on the innovation capacity of the firms. Our results show that the commercial success of innovations of French firms depends mainly on size, market share, R&D intensity and human capital. Inward FDI from industrialised countries exerts a positive and significant effect. The finding highlights the important role of the absorptive capacity of firms. Spillover measurements, such as the acquisition of machine tools, foreign patents, licenses, and technological opportunities have a positive impact on innovation.