A taxonomy of internationally dispersed technology units and its application to management issues

Abstract

Internationally dispersed technology units are classified using a system based upon three clearly defined dimensions: Type of technical work (research, development or support); functional areas with which the technology unit collaborates in its work (marketing, manufacturing, marketing and manufacturing, or none); and geographic area of collaboration (local, international). The resulting eight category taxonomy is shown to provide an improved platform for organizing and integrating the literature on the management of internationally dispersed technology units and for articulating theoretical issues in ongoing programs of empirical research.

Big Pharma's Internationalization of R&D to China

“…This is mainly concerned with exploiting firm-specific capabilities in foreign environments. As firms establish manufacturing facilities abroad and assign increasingly complex products to them, locating R&D sites in close proximity to factories to adapt products to local conditions becomes a necessity (Chiesa 1996, Medcof 1997.…”

Are patents with multiple inventors from different countries a good indicator of international R&D collaboration? The case of ABB

“…4 Two main perspectives on how to define 'international' R&D activities thus emerges from this categorization: (a) R&D activities distributed between multiple national locations and (b) R&D activities located in a country other than the home country of the corporation. Research using the latter definition tends to be concerned with issues such as development of typologies/taxonomies for internationally dispersed technology units (for an overview, see Medcof (1997)), corporate-level R&D networks (e.g. Gassman and von Zedtwitz, 1999) and internationalization objectives (e.g.…”

“…A common distinction used in the literature is that between on the one hand 'international' R&D and on the other hand 'global' R&D, where the latter (which is a subset of the former) indicates a broader dispersion of activities than the former (for example, across two or more regions/continents (cf. Georghiou, 1998;Medcof, 1997)). We will therefore complement our main analysis with an investigation of the more specific geographic dispersion of the R&D activities that we categorize as 'international' and discuss to what extent they can be considered 'global'.…”

“…customers and suppliers), horizontal partners (i.e. firms in the same industry and consultants) or academic and other scientific partners (cf., e.g., Chiesa and Manzini, 1998;Frenken et al, 2005;Fritsch and Lukas, 2001;Hagedoorn et al, 2000;Lööf, 2009;Medcof, 1997;Smith et al, 1995).…”

“…As a consequence, collaboration with another unit within the same MNC can be as challenging as inter-firm collaboration, even under the umbrella of joint ownership. Inter-subsidiary projects in diversified and duplicated MNC networks can be associated with large technological and political integration challenges (Berggren, 1999), due to, for example, geographic and cultural distance or heterogeneous strategies, incentives and capabilities (Frost and Zhou, 2005; see also Medcof, 1997).…”