global strategies multinational subsidiary roles and economic impact in scotland young s hood n and dunlop s 1988 global strategies multinational subsidiary roles and economic impact in scotland reg studies 22 487 497 this paper considers in a preliminary way the influence of mne global strategies on foreign subsidiary roles in scotland and from this some of the economic effects on the scottish economy are highlighted the study is based on a postal survey of mne subsidiaries in scotland the responses being analysed using the statistical techniques of cluster analysis and discriminant analysis despite the weaknesses of the former technique in particular the preliminary findings suggest substantial benefits to the economy from the one third of affiliates in the strategic independent product specialist categories as compared with the conventional branch plants rationalized manufacturers and miniature replica subsidiaries young s hood n et dunlop s 1988 strategies globales role des filiales des societes multi nationales et impact economique en ecosse

international trade and 1992 an overview this paper considers the impact of completing the european internal market 1992 in a convenient short hand on the ec s international trade it concentrates on quantifying the positive aspects of the trade in goods particularly with non ec countries it considers the issue in terms of the traditional concepts of customs union theory discusses what does or does not constitute a 1992 effect and briefly surveys some of the few estimates extant

identifying the competition we propose a utility method of identifying the set of competitors that a product faces we apply the method to the 1987 u s new automobile market

the role of non economic endowments introduction to the special section on what we know and what we should know about international knowledge sourcing recent developments in the pattern of international knowledge sourcing have highlighted a new international division of labor in knowledge production which now is affecting emerging as well as advanced countries the source of this division of labor has been identified as residing in the changing economic endowments of these countries we extend this by suggesting that the new international allocation of knowledge related activities is related strongly to a country s non economic endowments our arguments provide context to the papers in this special section

cluster or capture manufacturing foreign direct investment external economies and agglomeration phelps n a cluster or capture manufacturing foreign direct investment external economies and agglomeration regional studies this paper reviews the nature and significance of external economies associated with multinational enterprise mne participation in the manufacturing industries of host economies it argues that the balance of forces of internalization and externalization is currently skewed towards the former and the interests of mnes rather than the latter and the interests of local and national communities and governments a stylized comparison of developmental and competition state interventions in relation to mnes and their foreign direct investment fdi suggests that in the absence of co ordinated interventions by governments there will commonly be a failure of the logic of internalization to permit localized processes of externalization indeed the experiences of the competition states of the uk and the usa highlight the potential for the partial internalization or capture of loc

efta and the internal european market efta and the internal european market victor norman the efta countries must come to grips with the ec s single market this article contrasts two options under the first option the efta countries do not change their current arrangements with the ec under the second option they join the ec s common market since the ec is the efta countries main trading partner significant changes in cost demand and market structures within the ec must substantially affect efta the simulation results focusing on the motor vehicle and pharmaceutical industries confirm that 1992 is important for efta countries not so much because of the threat that an internal ec market represents but rather because of the opportunities that a larger european market offers generally the efta countries would not seem to lose much if they decided to stay outside the internal market but they could share much of the gains if they chose to integrate themselves quantitatively the gain accruing to efta is likely to be greater than the gain to the typical ec country this is because efta home markets are small so that the tradeoff between scale economies and competition is more severe than for the larger ec countries

technological and organizational change in automobile production spatial implications 1 schoenberger e 1987 technological and organizational change in automobile production spatial implications reg studies 21 199 214 the origins and implications of recent technological and organizational changes in the automobile industry are examined the nature of competition in the industry is linked to the adoption of flexible automation technologies in production this it is argued may foster the spatial re integration of production in contrast to earlier decentralizing trends an effect that may be reinforced by the move to just in time principles of production organization implications for regional development are considered with cautions stressed concerning the meaning of spatial proximity and the firm s ability to construct agglomeration economies away from traditional industrial centres schoenberger e 1987 changements technologiques et organisationnels dans la production automobile implications spatiales reg studies 21 199 214 les origines et les implications des recents changem

new perspectives on the innovation strategies of multinational enterprises lessons for technology policy in europe abstract the aim of this contribution is to learn more about changes in the innovation strategies of large multinational corporations whereby one focus is on internationalization aspects as sources for our analyses we reviewed the main empirical studies and gathered information and insights from 21 corporations our results show firstly that the internationalization of research and technology is still characterized by triadization involving companies from the us the european union and japan secondly qualitative motives are increasingly driving r d location decisions like learning from technological excellence and lead markets and dynamic interactions within the value chain thirdly the process of internationalization in research and technology has been accompanied by an increasingly selective focus on a very few locations and the concentration of innovation activities on worldwide centers of excellence we conclude that these changes in the innovation strategies of large multinational companies put several topics on the agenda for technology policy in europe 1 a stronger focus on extra european collaboration and mobility 2 strengthening the attractiveness of the european union to foreign r d investment and 3 the absorptive capacities of r d organizations in europe 4 a stronger integration of different policy areas and of indirect policy measures 5 as well as the establishment of a transparent and global framework for policy coordination and priority setting worldwide

upgrading primary production a global commodity chain approach abstract global commodity chain gcc analysis has been concerned mainly with examining power relations in global manufacturing industries although it has been preoccupied increasingly by the question of how developing country dc producers can upgrade this paper extends gcc analysis to traditional primary commodities where international traders exercise the driving role and suggests a new agenda for their upgrading in dcs based upon public action

a system dynamics approach for the photovoltaic energy market in spain abstract the goal of this paper is to contribute to understanding the behaviour of the photovoltaic pv sector in spain and its expectations under possible scenarios currently pv solar energy is not a profitable sector by itself therefore the spanish government like the governments of other countries has stimulated investment with subsidies the spectacular increase of pv facilities exceeded all forecasts and the government decided to curb the trend the present hypothesis is that continuing with this support to pv energy the technological advances and the economy generated from the production of panels would be able to make the sector profitable in the future without the necessity of subventions based on this hypothesis a computer simulation model was built using the system dynamics methodology to test its utility the model was challenged to fit the historical data and to explore several futures over the next few years the model allows an understanding of the sector s behaviour under the latest policies of the spanish government thus helping to design future public policies the simulation results are different depending on the adopted policy and the scenario therefore these factors will determine the success or failure of the investments in this type of energy

patterns of internationalisation of corporate technology location vs home country advantages given the trends towards increasing globalisation of markets and of production the globalisation of technology remains a subject of considerable interest to analysts and policy makers in the 1990s this paper provides some new empirical observations for debate and discussion on the patterns of technological activities of large firms outside their home countries it is based on a systematic analysis of the us patenting activities of 220 of the most internationalised firms in terms of their technology in the 1990s although firms are active outside their home countries in the high technology fields such as computers pharmaceuticals telecommunications image and sound and materials quite a sizeable proportion of their foreign activities are concerned with process and machinery technologies moreover a comparison of the technological advantage of the company at home and the advantage of the location shows that in a large majority of cases firms tend to locate their technology abroad in their core areas where they are strong at home these results suggest that adapting products and processes and materials to suit foreign markets and providing technical support to off shore manufacturing plants remain major factors underlying the internationalisation of technology they are also consistent with the notion that firms are increasingly engaging in small scale activities to monitor and scan new technological developments in centres of excellence in foreign countries within their areas of existing strength however there is little evidence to suggest that even these most internationalised firms routinely go abroad to compensate for their weakness at home

human appropriation of natural capital a comparison of ecological footprint and water footprint analysis the water footprint concept introduced in 2002 is an analogue of the ecological footprint concept originating from the 1990s whereas the ecological footprint ef denotes the bioproductive area hectares needed to sustain a population the water footprint wf represents the freshwater volume cubic metres per year required in elaborating the wf concept into a well defined quantifiable indicator a number of methodological issues have been addressed with many similarities to the methodological concerns in ef analysis the methodology followed in wf studies is in most cases analogous to the methodology taken in ef studies but deviates at some points well reasoned it has been chosen for instance to specifically take into account the source and production circumstances of products and assess the actual water use involved thus not taking global averages as a result one can exactly localise the spatial distribution of a water footprint of a country with respect to the outcome of the footprint estimates one can see both similarities and striking differences food consumption for instance contributes significantly to both the ef and the wf but mobility and associated energy use is very important only for the ef from a sustainability perspective the wf of a country tells another story and thus at times will put particular development strategies in a different perspective the paper reviews and compares the methodologies in ef and wf studies compares nation s footprint estimates and suggests how the two concepts can be interpreted in relation to one another the key conclusion is that the two concepts are to be regarded as complementary in the sustainability debate

trade policy with increasing returns and imperfect competition contradictory results from competing assumptions abstract a number of recent papers derive different results about the effects of trade and industrial policy on imperfectly competitive industries this paper sets out a single model within which policy under different market structures can be examined we consider the four types of market structure generated by oligopoly versus free entry and segmented markets versus integrated markets we conclude that the effects of policy are greater when markets are segmented than when they are integrated and that if transport costs are small policy is more potent when the number of firms is fixed than when there is free entry

r d offshoring and the productivity growth of european regions the recent increase in r d offshoring has raised fears that knowledge and competitiveness in advanced countries may be at risk of hollowing out at the same time economic research has stressed that this process is also likely to allow some reverse technology transfer and foster growth at home this paper addresses this issue by investigating the extent to which r d offshoring is associated with productivity dynamics of european regions we find that offshoring regions have higher productivity growth but this positive effect fades with the number of investment projects carried out abroad a large and positive correlation emerges between the extent of r d offshoring and the home region productivity growth supporting the idea that carrying out r d abroad strengthens european competitiveness

branch plants and the evolving spatial division of labour a study of material linkage change in the northern region of england phelps n a 1993 branch plants and the evolving spatial division of labour a study of material linkage change in the northern region of england reg studies 27 87 101 recent literature has suggested that manufacturing industry including that in peripheral regions is becoming more locally embedded as a result of processes of externalization and localized linkage formation this paper explores the hypothesis that branch plants have in terms of spatial patterns of material linkages become more locally embedded as a result of recent industrial restructuring evidence from a survey of manufacturing establishments in the northern region of england is used to explore hypotheses regarding the contribution of new greenfield investments and in situ restructuring to aggregate changes in spatial patterns of linkages the results suggests that despite processes of externalization northern region branch plants continue to be poorly integrated into the regional economy consequently it is argued that the cont

safe nests in global nets internationalization and appropriability of r d in wireless telecom this paper documents the case of the wireless telecom industry to bring new empirical evidence to the debate on the internationalization of research and development r d activities us patent statistics on the four industry leaders ericsson motorola nokia and qualcomm illustrate the growing trend of the internationalization of r d over the 1990s yet we show that the most critical r d projects related to the development of wireless standards remain homebound the paper then leverages qualitative data collected through interviews with informed managers to provide a fresh interpretation for the homeboundedness of critical industrial r d the stickiness of core r d projects to domestic locations is related not only to organizational inertia and the unripe maturation of subsidiaries as suggested by prior literature but particularly to the headquarters centralization of intellectual property ip management which offers a high level of appropriability of r d results the unequal distribution of appropriability across corporate r d networks is at the base of the formation of safe nests domestic r d centers that are sheltered from the forces of globalization because they offer a desirable setting for the exploitation of technologies deriving from a stronger coordination of inventive activities with the management of ip

multidivisional vs metanational governance of the multinational enterprise the effective and efficient management of diversified business firms that supply multiple products and operate in multiple dynamic markets especially large multinational enterprises mnes builds upon a number of specific governance principles these governance principles allow the alignment of environmental characteristics strategy and organization given the rising need to learn from the world doz et al in their influential harvard business school press book entitled from global to metanational have proposed a new set of governance principles described under the metanational umbrella concept this paper revisits the metanational using a comparative institutional perspective here we contrast multidivisional and metanational governance principles a comparative institutional analysis suggests that the metanational s application potential in terms of actually improving the effectiveness and efficiency of mne governance may be subject to more qualification than suggested by doz et al senior mne management must therefore reflect carefully before substituting metanational governance principles for the more conventional multidivisional ones with established contributions to managerial effectiveness and efficiency

the internationalisation of r d by multinationals a trade off between external and internal proximity overseas production is frequently seen as a force inducing the decentralization of rd it should on the contrary be completed by the implementation of relations of proximity internal to the firm which they refer to as internal proximity from this perspective the multinational firm that manages dispersed r d units is seen as facing a tension an organizational trade off between external proximity and internal proximity copyright 1999 by oxford university press

national scientific capacity and r d offshoring abstract this paper presents new evidence regarding the role of national scientific capacity in driving patterns of r d offshoring using a larger and more comprehensive dataset than has hitherto been used and applying it in a gravity model framework our results unambiguously support the importance of inventor country scientific capacity in attracting offshored r d as expected the home country s scientific capacity is also found to play a positive role we find that in fact on average firms source technology from less technologically advanced nations suggesting that firms offshore to access niche skills

the survival of international new ventures international new ventures invs are a popular mode of entry into foreign markets invs those companies that enter foreign markets at inception often suffer the two liabilities of newness and foreignness which may increase the odds of their failure this paper empirically examines the survival of invs by comparing them with other sequential modes of international operations e g acquisitions data from 275 british firms show that invs have lower unconditional survival probabilities than other modes of foreign market entry our analyses also show that differences in survival probabilities disappear when the firms competitive strategies are considered

offshoring administrative and technical work new fields for understanding the global enterprise in this paper we introduce the journal of international business studies special issue on offshoring administrative and technical services ats in doing so we have attempted to locate the topic within the international business research tradition as well as suggest challenges and opportunities that the phenomenon offers to theoretical and empirical research in the field we examine the interplay of costs knowledge and innovation in the evolution of ats offshoring from modest beginnings to its current stature as an accepted business practice we suggest that understanding the continuing evolution of ats offshoring requires researchers to take into account not only the business imperative of cost saving but also a more complex set of underlying factors and potential outcomes we argue that the rapid growth of ats offshoring has brought about an accumulation of resources including financial flows knowledge infrastructure and human capital to create new platforms for knowledge creation and innovation low costs may characterize the initial conditions for offshoring but they also provide the basis for up market moves as firms increasingly pursue innovation based strategies we introduce the papers in the special issue as integral elements in our discussion contributing new ideas that stimulated our thinking and hopefully will do the same for others seeking to understand this emerging area of globalization and international managerial practice journal of international business studies 2009 40 887 900 doi 10 1057 jibs 2009 22

market versus technology drive in r d internationalization four different patterns of managing research and development research and development are subject to different location drivers the analysis of 1021 r d units each distinguished by its main orientation towards either research or development work reveals that research is concentrated in only five regions worldwide while development is more globally dispersed our research is based on 290 research interviews and database research in 81 technology intensive multinational companies we identify two principal location rationales access to markets and access to science as the principal determinants for four trends that lead to four archetypes of r d internationalization national treasure market driven technology driven and global their organizational evolution is characterized by four trends the model is illustrated with short cases of international r d organization at kubota schindler xerox and glaxo wellcome differences in rd separation seems to contradict this trend we argue that this need not be the case for there are good reasons to maintain some independence between research and development

domestic alliance networks and regional strategies of mnes a structural embeddedness perspective we draw on a social network perspective to explain multinational enterprises mnes propensity to distribute their operations unevenly across various regions of the world we focus on how the positioning of mnes in their domestic network of strategic alliances affects their geographic scope i e whether they concentrate on their home region or expand beyond it we theorize that embeddedness in alliance networks constitutes a double edged sword to the geographic scope of mnes strong embeddedness in domestic alliance networks drives the development of location bound firm specific advantages fsas which may narrow down mnes geographic scope in contrast moderate embeddedness leads to more non location bound fsas which reduce liability of foreignness and hence motivate mnes to widen their geographical scope we thus predict a non linear relationship between domestic alliance network embeddedness and mne geographic scope furthermore the impact of the domestic alliance network on mne geographic scope hinges on the organizational ability to efficiently and effectively absorb resources stemming from the network we test our hypotheses using fdi data from 302 us mnes in the information and communication technology industry for the period of 2001 2008 and generally find robust support for the hypothesized relationships

how national institutions influence technology policies and firms knowledge building strategies a study of fuel cell innovation across industrialized countries abstract the central thesis advanced in this study is that firms knowledge building strategies can be usefully explained by the variations in their national institutional contexts using an inductive approach a study of fuel cell innovation across the u s france japan and norway demonstrates how countries socio political institutions characterized by their levels of statism and corporatism contribute to variations in technology policies pertaining to investment collaboration internationalization and diversity these technology policies are sources of advantages and disadvantages for firms with implications for their knowledge building strategies the proposed theoretical framework is especially relevant in the context of industry emergence and r d internationalization

economic integration and market access traditional analysis of the effect of economic integration on the rest of the world draws unambiguously pessimistic conclusions integration causes trade diversion which reduces demand for the rest of the world s exports and reduces supply of its imports the rest of the world s terms of trade may therefore deteriorate with associated welfare loss as is widely recognised this analysis gives an inadequate description of the current phase of european integration study of european integration must incorporate imperfect competition scale economies and intra industry trade the implications of these considerations for the effect of economic integration on the rest of the world have been discussed by corden 1972 robson 1987 pelkmans 1984 and in the context of the effects of 1992 on efta norman 1989 these considerations raise the possibility that consumers in the rest of the world may benefit from integration supply side improvements in the integrating economy for example lower marginal costs if there are increasing returns to scale or the production of more product varieties may spill over into rest of the world markets however the effects of integration on firms in the rest of the world is again negative they suffer reduced market shares and perhaps lower profits this is illustrated in smith and venables 1988 the second way in which current european integration is not adequately described by traditional theory is that the integration process is not the removal of taxes and tariffs but the alteration of rules and regulations the process thus has direct effects not only on ec firms but also on firms from

the influence of market demand upon innovation a critical review of some recent empirical studies abstract a number of recent empirical studies of technical change at the level of the individual firm have concluded that market demand is the dominant influence upon the innovation process calling forth innovations in market economies the pace of innovation in the private sector heavily influences the growth of national output and productivity and these studies and their conclusions have therefore received much attention having been extensively quoted in discussions of appropriate government policy for the encouragement of innovation this paper reviews a number of these studies and concludes that their findings and the interpretations of their findings in the secondary literature are seriously flawed and in many cases invalid the proposition that market demand governs the innovation process is by no means conclusively demonstrated in these studies and they are therefore inadequate and inappropriate guides for the formulation of policy most of the studies examined employ a working definition of demand factors which is so broad as to embrace a range of possible influences upon innovation which should more properly be classified elsewhere the concept of demand utilized in these studies bears little resemblance to the more restrictive and precise definition of market demand found in economics in addition the phenomena analyzed in these studies are a very heterogeneous lot the studies do not address identical empirical questions and their findings are as a result neither uniform nor unambiguous both demand and supply side influences are crucial to understanding the innovation process and it is the exclusive preoccupation with only one set of these forces which is criticized in this paper some implications of the criticism for government policy toward innovation are discussed in the conclusion

bringing history back into international business we argue that the field of international business should evolve its rhetoric from the relatively uncontroversial idea that history matters to exploring how it matters we discuss four conceptual channels through which history matters illustrating each with a major example first historical variation is at least a worthy complement to contemporary cross sectional variation in illuminating conceptual issues as an example we show that conclusions reached by the literature on contemporary emerging market business groups are remarkably similar to independently reached conclusions about a very similar organizational form that was ubiquitous in the age of empire second historical evidence avoids spurious labeling of some phenomena as new and by so doing may challenge current explanations of their determinants whereas some firm types today were also present earlier some types have disappeared some have appeared and some have disappeared and reappeared later third history can allow us to move beyond the oft recognized importance of issues of path dependence to explore the roots of penrosian resources we argue that the choices made by jardine s and swire s in asia today for example are an outgrowth of strategic choices first in evidence more than a century ago these would remain obscured absent an historical analysis fourth there are certain issues that are unaddressable except in the really long that is historical run exploring the causal relationship if any between foreign direct investment a staple of the international business literature and long run economic development provides one important example throughout we advocate embracing rigorous methods for analyzing small sample and qualitative data when conventional regression techniques do not apply that is we suggest that re embracing history in the mainstream is not tantamount to sacrificing methodological rigor

the policy implications of the globalisation of innovation abstract the paper develops a taxonomy of the globalisation of innovation based on three categories a the international exploitation of technology produced on a national basis b the global generation of innovations c the global technological collaborations the most evident changes implied by the increasing globalisation of innovation and technology are the tougher and increased competition and the greater collaboration between actors both across and within national boundaries the advantages just as the costs of these tendencies can be substantial leading to a higher risk of winners and losers the paper analyses the different impact that each category might have on the economic and innovative performance of countries and regions with the aim of defining the implications for national policies it is suggested that public policies play a different role in each of the three processes of the globalisation of innovation and that a single strategy does not exist neither from a firm s nor from a government s perspective the paper emphasis that none of the three categories in this taxonomy renders national policy obsolete on the contrary public policies are necessary on a far wider range than those currently implemented in the majority of countries

corporate social responsibility sustainable water use freshwater scarcity is no longer limited to sub saharan developing countries also in western society access to unlimited amounts of freshwater is not assured at all times it has been argued and laid down in many national legal systems that access to freshwater is a basic human right what if corporate freshwater use threatens to interfere with this human right the main focus of the article is to explore the role of today s companies in relation to freshwater a number of tools have been developed to attend to the necessity to reduce corporate use of freshwater the article discusses specialised water reporting instruments such as the 2007 global water tool and the water footprint calculation method in addition attention is paid to a ceres report 2010 revealing that the majority of the 100 world s leading companies in water intensive industries still has weak management and disclosures of water related risks and opportunities to obtain concrete information about corporate water strategies and practices an explorative analysis was conducted on 20 dutch multinational companies the article highlights various innovative practices in sum it is demonstrated that companies are expected to bear responsibility for their impact on water resources in particular when it influences public access to water in areas with freshwater scarcity and or weak government notwithstanding the critical conclusions of the ceres report it is interesting to see an evolution in corporate research concerning sustainable water use and the development of greener products and greener ways of production

how do different drivers of r d investment in foreign locations affect domestic firm performance an analysis based on swiss panel micro data the aim of this article is to investigate the differences between specific motives of rd 2817 companies shows first that factors related to firm specific knowledge oriented advantages are more important for explaining the likelihood of foreign r d activities than factors reflecting disadvantages related to home location second knowledge oriented motives of foreign r d positively influence the innovation performance of domestic firms whereas market and resource oriented strategies have a positive impact on labor productivity copyright 2011 the author 2011 published by oxford university press on behalf of associazione icc all rights reserved oxford university press

international trade and integration of the european community an econometric analysis the paper contributes to the policy debate on european integration by analyzing inte community trade and studying the structural determinants of intra ec trade are distinguished 1 factors relate

the globalisation of technology what remains of the product cycle model this paper reexamines two hypotheses associated with earlier versions of the product cycle model the first hypothesis that innovations are almost always located in the home country of the parent company is rejected on the basis of evidence drawn from one hundred years of u s patent office data the second hypothesis that the international dispersion of activity is led by technology leaders is historically valid however over the last twenty years technology leaders have been ahead instead in the globalization of technology that is in developing internal international networks to exploit the locationally differentiated potential of foreign centers of excellence c 1995 academic press inc copyright 1995 by oxford university press

a dynamic capabilities based entrepreneurial theory of the multinational enterprise this paper develops a dynamic capabilities based theory of the multinational enterprise mne it first reviews scholarship on the mne with a focus on what has come to be known as internalization theory one prong of this theory develops contractual transaction cost informed governance perspectives and another develops technology transfer and capabilities perspectives in this paper it is suggested that the latter has been somewhat neglected however if fully integrated as part of a more complete approach it can buttress transaction cost governance issues and expand the range of phenomena that can be explained in this more integrated framework dynamic capabilities coupled with good strategy are seen as necessary to sustain superior enterprise performance especially in fast moving global environments entrepreneurial management and transformational leadership are incorporated into a capabilities theory of the mne the framework is then used to explain how strategy and dynamic capabilities together determine firm level sustained competitive advantage in global environments it is suggested that this framework complements contract based perspectives on the mne and can help integrate international management and international business perspectives

accounting for core and extra core relationships in technological systems a methodological proposal abstract the paper proposes a new intersectoral methodology to measure the core relationships of a technological system that is the relationships of its private business core pbc and to integrate them with a consistent analysis of its extra core relationships that is between the pbc and the public and the foreign sub system although more demanding in terms of data referring to sectoral r d financing rather than to sectoral r d expenditure and differentiating the diffusion channels which approximate these relationships accordingly turns out to be more accurate in methodological terms and more powerful in terms of applications in particular as far as network analysis indicators are concerned an illustrative application for 5 ts is provided with respect to 1985 and important insights are obtained about how to compare the structure of the different ts sub systems although to be further explored in more extended and updated applications these insights have to be considered as pros along with the cons the methodology we propose inevitably entails

transnational firms and the changing organisation of innovative activities it is suggested that a transition is taking place towards new modes of organising transnational corporations innovative activities first different units of multinational firms including foreign based subsidiaries are increasingly involved in the generation use and transmission of knowledge secondly multinationals are developing external networks of relationships with local counterparts through which foreign affiliates gain access to external knowledge sources and application abilities as a result of this evolutionary process multinationals organisation is subject to both centripetal and centrifugal forces considerable efforts are then necessary to innovate coordination procedures and mechanisms in order to enhance the generation circulation and use of knowledge a number of empirical works are reviewed providing some evidence of the evolutionary process discussed in the paper 1 transnational companies as networks of innovators economists have long viewed innovation as being primarily generated by firms in their home countries classic contributions in the economics of multinational corporations have consolidated this view referring mainly to the us based multinationals vernon 1966 kindleberger 1969 and stopford and wells 1972 theorised a quasi colonial relationship between the parent company and foreign subsidiaries wherein the latter are in charge of replicating the former s activities abroad with strategic decisions including r d and innovation strategies being rigidly centralised particularly vernon emphasised that coordinating international innovative activities would be too costly owing to the difficulties of collecting and controlling relevant information across national borders host countries and foreign subsidiaries would then play a role almost exclusively in the adoption and diffusion of centrally created technology this view was supported mainly by us economists and based on us evidence from the early post world war ii period but it was very influential for the development of studies on the economics of transnational companies tncs and the internationalisation of

multinational experience and the creation of linkages with local firms evidence from the electronics industry the paper focuses on the nature and determinants of multinational firms creation of linkages with local firms with specific reference to the electronics industry the study of the recent evolution of international operations in this sector seems to highlight a relevant and somewhat generalisable pattern of industrial organisation and dynamics it is argued that the nature and intensity of multinational companies involvement into linkages with local counterparts are strongly influenced by a combination of factors that are partially inter dependent but still rely on different decision making centres on the one hand host countries long term investment policies in the field of human capital training and accumulation and on the other hand firms decisions to take roots in local contexts through the creation of foreign subsidiaries it is further suggested that human capital and subsidiaries will particularly favour the development of collaborative linkages with local firms compared to previous work of the authors on this subject this paper utilises an expanded and updated data set covering international operations of the top european and us electronics companies over the 1984 1995 period and attempts a more detailed and in depth analysis concerning the nature determinants and evolution in time of international growth strategies

fdi agoa and manufactured exports by a landlocked least developed african economy lesotho lesotho a resource poor country located inside south africa is now africa s largest exporter of apparel to the us its performance very unusual for africa relies heavily on asian investors and trade privileges this article traces the origins of fdi in lesotho and the determinants of its export competitiveness showing that apparel production suffers from low productivity poor skills and weak local links its prospects after agoa the african growth and opportunities act remain uncertain unless the government addresses these structural problems lesotho holds important lessons for industrial development in africa going beyond creating a good investment environment

what are the most promising conduits for foreign knowledge inflows innovation networks in the chinese pharmaceutical industry we study innovation networks in emerging markets where foreign actors have been identified as key sources of knowledge spillovers as well as progenitors of industry clusters focusing on connectivity as a channel for international knowledge sourcing we widen our lens beyond mnes to include critical innovative actors such as research institutions i e universities and research centers we examine the geographic dispersion of co inventor networks generated by us patents associated with the chinese pharmaceutical industry previous research has highlighted the role of organizationally driven mne networks as enablers of foreign knowledge inflows to less developed countries however our results emphasize the critical role of individually motivated networks arising from advanced economy research institutions in connecting china to global knowledge networks

contrasting experience of recession and spatial restructuring british shipbuilders plessey and metal box peck f w and townsend a r 1984 contrasting experience of recession and spatial re structuring british shipbuilders plessey and metal box reg studies 18 319 338 trends in aggregate economic indicators in the recent recession conceal marked variations in the experience of different industrial corporations within the meso economic sector in the uk this paper demonstrates such variations by comparing the nature of employment decline in three major uk corporations british shipbuilders plessey and metal box despite similar employment profiles since 1977 these three corporations have experienced very different trends in output productivity and profitability suggesting that their respective job losses have occurred for different reasons the origins of these job losses are examined in detail concentrating in particular on the regional incidence of major redundancies and closures the conclusion summarizes the factors which influence job loss and suggests extending the analysis to wider groups of

the changing corporate head office and its spatial implications aksoy a and marshall n 1992 the changing corporate head office and its spatial implications reg studies 26 149 162 a substantial body of literature suggests that during the 1980s large firms reorganized in response to volatility in product markets and in a search for new competitive advantage using evidence from a survey of twenty large firm head offices in great britain this paper examines the extent of large firm reorganization and its impact on regional economies it shows that associated with corporate restructuring employment in large firm head offices has declined substantially headquarters functions have been delegated to operating companies and contracting out has increased in a review of the geographical consequences of these changes which goes beyond the discussion of high tech complexes and industrial districts the paper suggests that reorganization is modifying rather than transforming patterns of spatial development in britain corporate restructuring is encouraging the dec

accumulating technological competence its changing impact on corporate diversification and internationalization recent studies have suggested that firm specific technological competence may be diversified and internationalized we show that increases in competence increased corporate technological diversification until the early 1970s and then again more recently however a new interrelationship has now emerged between the accumulation diversification and internationalization of technological competence due to the formation of internationally integrated networks within firms the empirical analysis consists of a dynamic cross section model applied to the corporate patenting in the us of 166 of the largest european and us industrial firms from 1901 to 1995 copyright 2000 by oxford university press

global technology development by colocating r d and manufacturing the case of swedish manufacturing mnes in this study we analyze the role of colocation between research and development r d and manufacturing for global technology development by multinational enterprises mnes the extant literature suggests that the main strategic role of colocated r d units is to locally adapt existing products and processes however data from 146 foreign r d units of sweden s 17 largest manufacturing mnes in 2013 show that they instead mainly develop new technology not only for the local and regional markets but to a large extent for the global market a likely explanation is that colocation positively contributes to joint problem solving and transfer of tacit knowledge between production and r d personnel all of which is necessary in new product development especially in industries characterized by complex products and systems and rapid technological change a theoretical implication is that depending on industry characteristics internal cross functional linkages between r d and manufacturing can be more critical than external supply and demand side factors when it comes to influence where r d units are located globally

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 w strategy of canadian multinational corporations mncs with foreign r d activities niosi j 1997 the globalization of

new concepts and trends in international r d organization abstract the globalization of markets the regionalization of technical and scientific expertise and the rapid change in technologies are forcing technology based companies to continuously adjust their r d organization our study of 33 companies reveals five different types of r d organization in multinational companies mnc we classified r d organizations according to the dispersion of r d activities and the degree of cooperation between individual r d units and identified the ethnocentric centralized the geocentric centralized the polycentric decentralized the r d hub and the integrated r d network organization five trends of organizational change among these forms of international r d organization were identified 1 stronger orientation of r d activities towards international markets and knowledge centers 2 establishment of tightly coordinated listening posts 3 strengthening and reinforcement of foreign r d sites 4 increased integration of decentralized r d units and 5 tighter coordination and recentralization of r d activities at fewer know how centers the search for the optimal balance between coordination and control is reflected by hybrid structures and intermediary configurations detected in some of the investigated companies since effective changes in behavioral orientation require considerable time successful quantum leaps in multinational r d organization are next to impossible

mutual productivity spillovers between foreign and local firms in china the existing literature treats advanced technology sourcing as the only cause of reverse productivity spillovers from local to foreign firms and implies that mutual spillovers between foreign and local firms can only happen in the developed world this paper argues that the diffusion of indigenous technology and local knowledge helps the productivity enhancement of multinationals so that there can be mutual spillovers even in a developing country the results from a large sample firm level econometric analysis and a comparative case study of seven companies in chinese manufacturing support this new argument as mutual spillovers are identified between local chinese firms and overseas chinese or oecd invested firms

foreign direct investment in industrial research in the pharmaceutical and electronics industries results from a survey of multinational firms abstract this paper examines motives location characteristics inter temporal characteristics and modes of entry for foreign direct investment fdi in research and development r d the paper is based on a detailed empirical survey of laboratory sites established by 32 large multinational companies domiciled in 5 countries findings indicate that fdi in r d has risen considerably over the last 40 years and that firms invest in r d sites abroad in order to augment their knowledge base or in order to exploit it the former motive leads to establishment of facilities primarily close to universities while the latter type leads to establishment of facilities close to existing manufacturing facilities and markets the paper also finds that greenfield investments are the dominant mode of entry and that firms establish multiple r d sites in their home countries before investing in such sites abroad

sustainable utilization of water resources in china a system dynamics model water resources play an important role in demographic social and economic development the present study divides the macroeconomic factors that affect the sustainable use of water resources into five major subsystems economy population water supply and demand land resources and water pollution and management it then constructs a feedback loop and stock flow chart of the systems with the system dynamics model to simulate water supply and demand conditions and future changes in the gap between supply and demand from 2005 to 2020 further this study designs different development programs to simulate the changes to the key variables by changing the value of important model parameters it is found that a balanced development program can achieve not only steady economic growth provide a demographic dividend and protect arable land resources but also maximize the sewage treatment rate and improve the reutilization efficiency of water moreover we find that the fundamental way in which to bridge the gap between the supply and demand of water resources is to improve water supply rather than control demand

technology sourcing versus technology exploitation an analysis of us foreign direct investment flows the traditional paradigm of foreign direct investment fdi suggests that fdi is undertaken principally to exploit some firm specific advantage in a foreign country which provides a locational advantage to the investor however recent theoretical work suggests a model of fdi in which the motivation is not to exploit existing technological advantages in a foreign country but to access such technology and transfer it from the host economy to the investing multinational corporation via spillover effects this paper tests the technology sourcing versus technology exploiting hypotheses for a panel of sectoral fdi flows between the united states and major oecd nations over a 15 year period the research makes use of patel and vega s research policy 28 145 55 1999 taxonomy of sectors which are likely a priori to exhibit technology sourcing and exploiting behaviour respectively while there is evidence that fdi flows into the united states are attracted to r and d intensive sectors very little support is found for the technology sourcing hypothesis either for inward or outward fdi flows the results suggest that in aggregate firm specific ownership effects remain powerful determinants of fdi flows

competing for capital the diffusion of bilateral investment treaties 1960 2000 over the past forty five years bilateral investment treaties bits have become the most important international legal mechanism for the encouragement and governance of foreign direct investment the proliferation of bits during the past two decades in particular has been phenomenal these intergovernmental treaties typically grant extensive rights to foreign investors including protection of contractual rights and the right to international arbitration in the event of an investment dispute how can we explain the widespread adoption of bits we argue that the spread of bits is driven by international competition among potential host countries typically developing countries for foreign direct investment we propose a set of hypotheses that derive from such an explanation and develop a set of empirical tests that rely on network measures of economic competition as well as more indirect evidence of competitive pressures on the host to sign bits the evidence suggests that potential hosts are more likely to sign bits when their competitors have done so we find some evidence that coercion and learning play a role but less support for cultural explanations based on emulation our main finding is that the diffusion of bits is associated with competitive economic pressures among developing countries to capture a share of foreign investment we are agnostic at this point about the benefits of this competition for development for useful comments on earlier drafts of this article we thank bill bernhard bear braumoeller frank dobbin robert franzese jeffry frieden geoffrey garrett tom ginsburg jude hays lisa martin bob pahre mark ramsayer steven ratner susan rose ackerman and john sides for research assistance we thank elizabeth burden raechel groom and alexander noonan

why are companies offshoring innovation the emerging global race for talent this paper empirically studies determinants of decision by companies to offshore innovation activities it uses survey data from the international offshoring research network project to estimate the impact of managerial intentionality past experience and environmental factors on the probability of offshoring innovation projects the results show that the emerging shortage of highly skilled science and engineering talent in the us and more generally the need to access qualified personnel are important explanatory factors for offshoring innovation decisions moreover contrary to drivers of many other functions labor arbitrage is less important than other forms of cost savings the paper concludes with a discussion of the changing dynamics underlying offshoring of innovation activities suggesting that companies are entering a global race for talent

is knowledge power knowledge flows subsidiary power and rent seeking within mncs in recent years as multinational corporation mnc subsidiaries have become more closely linked to international networks their knowledge intensity has risen and some of their r d has gained a more creative role simultaneously and often connectedly many subsidiaries have acquired considerable strategic independence in all aspects of their operations and therefore are able to exercise considerable intra firm bargaining power to influence the distribution of the firm s resources in this context we suggest that intra mnc knowledge flows are a key determinant of subsidiary bargaining power we argue that subsidiary managers can exploit such power to pursue their own ends such rent seeking behavior is implicit in much of the literature on managerialism but our analysis suggests that such behavior can now occur in headquarters subsidiary and subsidiary subsidiary relations thus subsidiary strategic independence designed to enhance the competitiveness of outputs market knowledge and inputs asset seeking and learning can be corroded when the pursuit of subsidiary objectives encourages rent seeking empirical analysis of a sample of high technology subsidiaries in the uk provides strong support for the theory we examine several avenues whereby the incentives of units within the mnc can be aligned

broken chain agoa and foreign direct investment in the kenyan clothing industry drawing upon survey and interview research covering 23 of an estimated total of 35 clothing manufacturing establishments operating in kenya as well as interviews with the policy community this paper examines the local economic development impacts associated with the recent agoa prompted re birth of the clothing industry in kenya just after its recent high watermark in 2003 it provides evidence of the characteristics of these manufacturing establishments as well as evidence of the multiple and interconnected failures on the part of government parent companies agents and customers to promote the longer term sustainability of the industry as such it provides further case study evidence of africa s uniquely problematic incorporation into global commodity chains

the impact of regional and institutional factors on labor productive performance evidence from the township and village enterprise sector in china this paper investigates the determinants of township and village enterprise tve labour productivity in china examining behaviour at both the national and regional levels the results suggest that human capital the real wage level foreign intensity export intensity capital investment and firm size are the most important factors affecting labour productivity at the national level but their relative importance varies significantly between the regions the results also indicate that government privatization reforms had a major impact on labour productivity in the tve sector across the regions

foreign direct investment and the sourcing of technological advantage evidence from the biotechnology industry this paper investigates the proposition that foreign direct investment in a high technology industry is motivated in part by the sourcing of country specific technological advantages embedded in foreign firms the empirical findings show that foreign equity investment is drawn to american biotechnology firms with high levels of patent activity we suggest that in the biotechnology industry foreign direct investment in the form of equity participation can be an efficient vehicle for tapping into country specific firm embodied technological advantages

historical evolution of technological diversification a positive relationship exists between national technological size and technological diversification across fields of innovative activity this paper shows how the nature of this relationship has changed historically there has been a downward structural shift in the cross country size diversification frontier since 1965 for any given size countries have become less diversified or more narrowly concentrated in their technological specialisation one explanation is that international technology sourcing by mnes has led locations to focus on what they do best a supporting factor may be a rise in technological interrelatedness which encourages focus upon a specific selection of complementary combinations

geographical amplitude in the international generation of technology present situation and business determinants abstract building on a rich dataset with information on 65 000 firms and 465 000 european patent applications from 1978 to 2000 this paper addresses the geographical amplitude of international technology generation first we show that the number of countries hosting international technological activities is increasing the usa and some developing nations benefit from this internationalisation conversely although europe as a whole still plays a leading role in the encouragement of foreign technological activities some european countries such as germany and the uk appear to be losing their technological appeal second we verify that multinational corporations mncs have increased the geographical amplitude of their technological activities in fact the mean number of countries in which mncs internationalised technology generation has doubled during the 23 years we have analyzed third we address the business characteristics that explain this phenomenon a negative binomial regression suggests that internationalisation is higher in mncs showing a greater technological diversification a higher volume of technological activity a wider presence in international markets and more experience in the international generation of technology finally american corporations and regardless of the home country those firms whose main technological fields are in chemistry pharmaceuticals or electronics present the highest geographical dispersion of their international technological activities

european community external protection and 1992 voluntary export restraints applied to pacific asia european community external protection and 1992 voluntary export restraints applied to pacific asia

offshoring of r d looking abroad to improve innovation performance the offshoring of knowledge services has become a phenomenon of increasing importance for firms but many of its implications are yet to be discussed thoroughly this paper analyzes whether r d offshoring contributes to enhancing firms innovation capabilities specifically the study distinguishes between two governance models of offshoring captive offshoring and offshore outsourcing and two types of innovation outcomes product and process innovations we suggest that r d offshoring has different impacts depending on the innovation results and governance models considered the study empirically tests these relationships using the spanish technological innovation panel this survey contains information on a large sample of firms from diverse sectors for the period 2004 2007 the empirical findings allow us confirm our hypotheses and highlight the strategic importance of r d offshoring the empirical evidence reveals a positive relation between offshoring and innovation performance with a greater effect on product than on process innovations the results for different governance models show that captive offshoring has a greater effect on innovation outcomes than offshore outsourcing these findings lead us to conclude that firms that look overseas can benefit from location specific and specialization advantages to improve innovation performance

the failed africanization of commerce and industry in kenya abstract in the 1970s a number of authors challenged the dependency perspective with respect to kenya they maintained that a viable domestic capital class nurtured by state sponsorship had emerged since independence this article questions the revisionist interpretation of state business relations in kenya kenya does possess a dynamic entrepreneurial sector led mainly by kenyan indians government efforts to aid african entrepreneurs or to establish a vigorous state capitalist sector have been ineffective this is evident from surveys of the state enterprise sector private manufacturing and commerce revisionist authors tended to overestimate the capacity of kenyan state agencies to implement policy goals and they neglected the political context of africanization as an instrument of ethnic patronage for state leaders

formalizing internationalization in the eclectic paradigm the paper presents a simple general equilibrium model that formalizes internationalization in the eclectic paradigm based on a reconfiguration of concepts taken from the new classical economics literature the model enables us to address simultaneously the role of ownership location and internalization advantages and their interaction in the emergence of the multinational enterprise mne through a set of mathematical inequalities our model offers a bridge between the detached perceptions of the mne often held by international trade economists and international business scholars and makes specific aspects of the eclectic paradigm empirically testable

location versus home country advantages in r d activities some further results on multinationals locational strategies abstract in this paper we study the question of the determinants of the foreign location of technological activities of multinational firms mnfs do they locate their knowledge activities as a consequence of their home country advantages or according to host country strengths we have defined four types of strategy learning according to revealed technological advantages our results based on the 345 mnfs with the greatest patenting activity in europe globally confirm the main findings of patel and vega research policy 28 2 3 1999 145 155 in a great majority of cases nearly 70 mnfs locate their activities abroad in technological areas or fields where they are strong at home strategies 2 and 3 moreover strategy 3 which corresponds with dynamic learning outclasses strategy 2 which corresponds with myopic learning and becomes increasingly important over time the strategy of japanese firms is very different from european and us mnfs in europe japanese firms seek out locations that have complementary strengths to their own strategy 2 in terms of policy implications it can be noted that the national system of innovation in particular the system of academic research should strengthen the technological advantages of local firms and enable them to successfully locate a part of their r d activities abroad

the impact of technological innovation on international trade patterns the evidence reconsidered abstract this paper presents some new evidence in relation to the role of technical change in particular industrial innovation on the international competitiveness of the various oecd countries its originality consists primarily of a using a technology output indicator to measure technological performance b presenting and comparing various measures of trade and technological performance for each individual oecd country with the exception of iceland c analysing at a relatively high level of product industry disaggregation the relationship between export performance and technological performance at the same time the very limited scope of the paper has to be emphasized a the analysis is purely static all the evidence presented relates to one year 1977 b most of the results obtained are preliminary and should be further substantiated by more detailed empirical and theoretical research c as a consequence little attention has been paid to policy implications which it was felt could only be discussed properly in a later stage the paper consists of four sections a brief review of the state of the art section 1 a discussion on definitions of technology intensity section 2 the development of the best technology output indicator section 3 and the empirical analysis itself section 4 the following most important results emerge from these various sections a there are serious shortcomings in using average technology intensity as bench mark for classifying products or industries in technology intensive or nontechnology intensive categories b there is a substantial difference between technology intensity as measured on the basis of a technology input proxy rd c yet as between countries the most traditional output and input indicators the number of patents granted and the amount spent on rd d foreign patenting in particular foreign patenting in the united states figs 1 and 2 section 3 is a more reliable technology output proxy than domestic patenting e in terms of technological comparative advantage as opposed to technology intensity it is the small oecd countries as opposed to the large ones which seem to base their trade comparative advantage on technological comparative performance table 7 section 4 1 f at the individual industry level it is found that i for most technology intensive industries defined however in a less restrictive way than us r d intensities a close relation exists between technological performance and export performance and ii that as compared to other country specific resource variables technological performance is the most important trade explanatory variable its elasticity increasing with the technology intensity of industries tables 11 and 12 section 4 2 space constraints prevented us from presenting the data in relation to the inter industry and inter country analysis these can however be obtained from the author

location and the multinational enterprise in the early development of the international business field the focus of attention moved from the country level to the firm level and interest in location issues declined more recently firm based research has itself become increasingly concerned with the study of firm location interactions when examining two way knowledge flows or spillovers between multinational enterprises mnes and other actors in specific locations the diversity or heterogeneity of firms matters as does the diversity of locational environments the localization of knowledge sources depends on mne group level strategies for growth and organizational decentralization on subsidiary level evolution towards local competence creating efforts and on the development of suitable business networks within locations mnes now have a greater potential to benefit from a synergistic locational portfolio of complementary sources of knowledge the locational composition of the international network for knowledge sourcing of a given mne depends upon the extent of institutional compatibility between the locations in which the mne is active this compatibility between locations in turn affects the capacity of the mne to become an insider in local business systems and to influence the local institutional environment

the drivers of foreign direct investment into research and development an empirical investigation this paper examines the determinants of foreign direct investment fdi in research and development laboratories by 32 multinational enterprises in the pharmaceutical and electronics industries the paper applies a dichotomous set of motives for fdi results from an econometric analysis of 136 laboratory investments show that relative market size and relative strength of a country s science base determine whether fdi in research and development is carried out in order to exploit existing firm specific advantages or in order to build up new firm specific advantages this holds true in similar form for japanese european and u s firms and across the two industries

the influence of hymer s dissertation on the theory of foreign derect investment the great contribution of stephen hymer s seminal dissertation 1960 was to escape from the intellectual straightjacket of neoclassical type trade and financial theory and move us towards an analysis of the multinational enterprise mne based upon industrial organization theory the magnitude of this breakthrough can be put into perspective by considering the state of the art when hymer wrote twenty five years ago in 1960 the prevailing explanation of international capital movements relied exclusively upon a neoclassical financial theory of portfolio flows in this frictionless world of perfect competition with no transaction costs capital moves in response to changes in interest rate or profit differentials see carl iversen 1936 according to this arbitrage theory capital is assumed to be transacted between independent buyers and sellers that is there is no role for the mne at the time there was no separate theory of foreign direct investment fdi the work did not even ask the question of why is there fdi despite the evidence of sectoral cross investments and the existence of large mnes with intra industry trade if anything the early work on fdi focused upon the where of investment in a particular nation or industry for example dunning 1958 was chiefly interested in explaining u s fdi in britain there was little interest in understanding the reasons for the mne or the nature of its operations the pioneering conceptual insight of hymer was to break out of the arid mold of international trade and investment theory and focus attention upon the mne per se this permits us to treat fdi as a modality by which firms extend their territorial horizons abroad the unique feature of fdi is a mechanism by which the mne maintains control over productive activities outside its national boundaries that is fdi means international production in this view fdi is more than a process by which assets or claims are exchanged internationally see robert aliber 1970 1983 hymer s great insight was in focusing attention upon the mne as the institution for international production rather than international exchange until hymer articulated the process of fdi as an international extension of industrial organization theory it was not possible to understand why the mne transfers intermediate products such as knowledge or technology among its units across different nations while still retaining property rights over such assets today it is widely recognized that the theory of fdi i e international production is primarily about the transfer of nonfinancial and ownershipspecific intangible assets by the mne which needs to appropriate and control the rate of use of its internalized advantage s see rugman 1981 david teece 1981 1982 richard caves 1982 and mark casson 1983 in this paper we first acknowledge hymer s contribution to the theory of fdi and then move on to reinterpret his dissertation in the light of the modern theory of the mne we tdiscussants raymond vernon harvard university robert z aliber university of chicago paul streeten boston university

the persistence of innovative activities abstract this paper examines the persistence of innovative activities at the firm level in a comparative perspective a new data set is used composed of six panel data one for each of the following countries france germany italy uk japan and the usa for each country we use data on patent applications to the european patent office in the period 1978 1993 by 1200 1400 manufacturing firms using a transition probability matrix tpm approach we find evidence for the existence of persistence in innovative activities although it is not very high in the aggregate and it declines as time goes by however both great innovators and non innovators have a high probability to remain in their state and persistent innovators originate a disproportionate share of innovative activities in this sense persistence in innovative activities is quite strong these tendencies apply to all countries considered here although clear country specific properties are observed moreover there is heterogeneity also across industrial and size classification intersectoral differences are invariant across countries suggesting that persistence is at least partly a technology specific variable persistence tends to increase with firm size but the relationship between firms size and persistence is strongly country specific and it is not a simple one

eec integration towards 1992 some distributional aspects gains and losses from 1992 damien j neven this paper examines how the benefits and costs of the internal market programme will be shared across member states the main conclusion is that the northern european countries stand to gain little from 1992 the only exception is the uk which will benefit from integration because initially it is less integrated than its northern neighbours the main beneficiaries will be the southern european countries they will benefit both from a better exploitation of their comparative advantage in labour intensive commodities and from the gains from unexploited scale economies which have already been substantially exploited in northern europe although northern countries have a comparative advantage in goods which are intensive in human capital southern markets for these goods are relatively small that is why it is the southern countries which stand to gain most even if in addition ec trade with the rest of the world is liberalized at the same pace as within the ec labour intensive production especially clothing and footwear in the south could increase by as much as 14 after 1992 areas in the north where such industries are concentrated may be the largest losers from 1992

industrialization trajectories in madagascar s export apparel industry ownership embeddedness markets and upgrading summary the paper shows the importance of ownership as a conceptual category within global value chain gvc analysis through analyzing firm types based on their gvc linkage market access and ownership profile in madagascar s apparel export industry the central argument is that ownership leading to variances in embeddedness matters ownership characteristics of supplier firms shape the ability to shift between different end markets respond to lead firm requirements and pursue upgrading with madagascar s exclusion from agoa benefits this has enabled locally embedded european french diaspora owned firms and regionally embedded mauritian owned firms to shift market channels and upgrade while asian owned firms largely exited the industry

factors governing the development of high tech industry agglomerations a tale of three cities glasmeier a 1988 factors governing the development of high tech industry agglomerations a tale of three cities reg studies 22 287 301 high tech industries are thought to precipitate structural change in local economies through the creation of backward and forward linkages and new firm spinoffs case studies of high tech firms and products indicate interindustry linkage development is closely associated with product type and organizational structure of firms three product configurations one of a kind customized and standardized generate differing levels of linkage and spinoff potential firms producing customized products with highly variable input structures and established subcontracting relationships are more amenable to linkage and spinoff creation than firms producing one of a kind or standardized products the potential for linked industry development is further diluted because the spatial expansion path of high tech firms has been through the creation of technical branch plants which a