Managing the internationalization of R&D activities

The increasing dispersion of R&D laboratories in different countries force multinational firms to take a global view in managing their research operations and to make efforts to coordinate their dispersed R&D. Few studies have so far investigated whether or not international R&D structures exist, and how forms of division of labor, interdependencies, and coordination among geographically dispersed units take place. This paper proposes a taxonomy of international R&D structures and attempts to identify why and how they are designed as they are. It is based on the findings of field research on 12 multinational companies. It shows that the shape of the structure is dependent on the type of R&D activity, namely the longer time horizon of the research activity the more dispersed structure tend to be. Moreover, the structural outcome seems to be strongly influenced by two variables: the degree of dispersion of external sources of knowledge, and the degree of dispersion of the key internal R&D resources. These factors in turn are dependent on both industry- and firm-specific variables. This helps explain why the international R&D structural outcome varies from industry to industry and from firm to firm within the same industry.