Technology management and international business : internationalization of R & D and technology

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Technology management and international business : internationalization of R & D and technology

edited by Ove Granstrand, Lars Håkanson, Sören Sjölander

Wiley, c1992

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Includes bibliographical references and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

This book is an edited selection of revised papers, which were originally prepared for an international research conference titled "Technology management and international business" held in Stockholm 17-20 June, 1990. A number of themes related to technology management and international business were treated at the conference, but internationalization of industrial R&D and technology was the theme with the largest and most coherent subset of conference papers. These papers presented research results from a number of countries, mainly by European researchers. Although the conference was international, this European bias was perhaps not surprising since a number of European corporations, especially from some of the smaller countries, have historically been the most internationalized in the world, both regarding sales, production and R&D. It is clear that internationalization of industrial R&D with a few exceptions is a fairly recent phenomenon, which still has not progressed very far in absolute terms. However, there are also come clear and general long-term trends towards an increasing extent and importance of R&D conducted on an international basis. The European corporations and countries with highly internationalized R&D compared to others would then become precursors with possible early mover advantages and disadvantages. At the same time most of the research and writings on foreign R&D (which is then typically called 'overseas R&D') have been of U.S. origin. Against this background it was felt that a book focusing on internationalization of R&D, drawing on research mainly but not exclusively from a European perspective, would be appropriate. Undoubtedly, this focus meant that several other highly interesting themes and contributions at the conference had to be sacrificed, for example internationalization of production systems and the impact of automation and information tecnhologies in that connection. The conference was moreover designed to bring together perspectives from economists, engineers and business management professionals as well as questions at the macro and micro level. The experience from this design was positive, although a major issue of divergence among participants concerned the pros and cons of various methods - the appropriateness of statistical data of various kinds versus case studies, surveys versus in-depth interviews, etc. It is easy to side-step such divergence of opinion by arguing in favour of methodological pluralism at an aggregate level, but then - how could a suitable integration of research results be accomplished in general and how could they be translated into useful guidelines for management and policy-makers in specific cases? This is certainly not an issue that only concerns research on the internationalization of R&D. However, in view of the youth of this phenomenon, one cannot, for the time being, expect that much can be said on firm grounds with general validity, except that more recognition of various aspects of the phenomenon is needed and also that more research is needed. As is often the case in management studies, management research and policy research lag behind best management practice. This applies as well to technology management in general and internationalization of R&D in particular. The conference and this book have been an attempt to catch up a little bit. However, more efforts are needed and, hopefully, this book can also stimulate further work in this area.

Table of Contents

  • List of contributors
  • preface
  • list of abbreviations. Part 1: Introduction and overview. Part 2: Multinational enterprises and the globalization of innovatory capacity. Part 3: Large firms in the production of the world's technology - an important case of "non-globalization". Part 4: The internationalization of technological activity and its implications for competitiveness. Part 5: Locational determinants of foreign R&D in Swedish multinationals. Part 6: Business culture and international technology - research manager's perceptions of recent changes in corporate R&D. Part 7: Internationalization of research and development among the world's leading enterprises - survey analysis of organization and motivation. Part 8: Management of international R&D operations. Part 9: Internationalization and diversification of multi-technology corporations. Part 10: International collaborative ventures and U.S. firms' R&D strategies. Part 11: Summary and implications.

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