Global corporate competition: Who's winning, who's losing, and the R&D factor as one reason why

Abstract This study summarizes the major changes over the period 1960–86 in the shares of world markets of the world'S leading American, European and Asian corporations based in 15 major industries. It relates the differential sales growth rates of the gaining and losing firms to national trends in industrial competitiveness, to employment change and to long‐term returns to shareholders. One principal determinant of firms' global growth rates, and thence gains and losses in ‘world market share’, corporate research and development (R&D) intensity, is examined and tested on an 83‐firm, six‐industry subset of the overall data base. The proportion of corporate sales revenues allocated to commercially oriented R&D emerges as a, perhaps the, principal indicator of subsequent sales growth performance relative to competition over 5–10‐year periods. Insofar as many U.S. and U.K. firms have lost global market share relative to Asian and European competitors over the past two decades, a significant contributory factor would appear to have been negligence on the part of many U.S. and U.K. firms of investment in technology as a factor determining strategic, competitive advantage.