Scientific research, firm heterogeneity and foreign R&D locations of multinational firms

Rene Belderbos, Bart Leten and Shinya Suzuki

No 562201, Working Papers of Department of Management, Strategy and Innovation, Leuven from KU Leuven, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Department of Management, Strategy and Innovation, Leuven

Abstract: We examine the influence of host countries’ scientific research strengths on global R&D location choices by multinational firms. In an analysis of 277 new R&D activities identified for 175 firms in 40 host countries and 30 technology fields, we find that the strength of relevant university research positively affects the likelihood that host countries attract foreign R&D. When allowing for firm heterogeneity, university scientific research appears only a significant factor for firms with a strong science orientation in their R&D activities. Host countries’ corporate scientific research has no systematic influence on R&D location choices. Empirical results are replicated in an analysis at the regional level covering regions in Europe the US, and Japan.

Keywords: R&D Internationalization; Knowledge sourcing; Absorptive capacity; Industry-science links (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-geo, nep-ino, nep-int and nep-tid
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Published in FEB Research Report MSI_1613

Downloads: (external link)
https://lirias.kuleuven.be/retrieve/420645 MSI_1613 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Scientific research, firm heterogeneity, and foreign R&D locations of multinational firms (2017)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ete:msiper:562201

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers of Department of Management, Strategy and Innovation, Leuven from KU Leuven, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Department of Management, Strategy and Innovation, Leuven
Bibliographic data for series maintained by library EBIB ().