Offshoring and Outsourcing Innovation? The New Challenge for Multinationals, 2007-2010

Western multinationals are now increasingly locating their research and development (R&D) activities in the emerging economies of China and India. This offshoring of innovation raises the following questions for policy makers and multinational firms: 1) What is the extent and nature of outsourcing and offshoring innovation, especially to emerging economies like India and China? 2) What are the main drivers of the globalisation of innovation? Answering these questions involved collecting secondary data on the R&D locations of the world's largest multinationals. The sample covers a wide range of industries, including pharmaceuticals, chemicals, electronics, engineering, and equipment manufacturing. Data were collected in 4 steps. First, an in-depth search of corporate and subsidiary websites across individual countries was used to objectively identify the location and number of R&D facilities across nations. Second, these data were cross-checked and complemented with searches of the Factiva and Corporate Affiliations databases. Factiva provides news reports from global media, and includes reports of R&D activities. Corporate Affiliations is a repository of information of corporations' affiliates, subsidiaries, and divisions worldwide. Third, a subset of these data were further cross-checked by matching the locations of R&D centres with the addresses of inventors of patents assigned in the last 3 years to these firms; the Delphion database and the US Patent and Trade Office website were used for these searches. Fourth, managers of individual firms were contacted to clarify contradictions. Includes Fortune 500 companies listed in 2008 (excluding financial services firms) in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Poland, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, UK & USA.These data are under embargo at the request of the depositor until 1 January 2012. To obtain a free account please register with the UKDA.