External Drivers

In the previous chapter we have outlined trends and evolutionary patterns for international R&D organization based on internal distribution and allocation of R&D resources. As we will describe in Part II, the contracted term “R&D” beguiles us into disregarding the inherent differences between research and development. The necessities of science, compared with the needs of engineering and development, entail different managerial problems (see e.g. Leifer and Triscari, 1987). Differences between research and development in terms of location rationales and work culture effectuate different geographical distribution and concentration in different regional centers. In this chapter, we present a model of R&D internationalization that focuses on external sources of knowledge as well as the exploitation of home-based-generated but locally implemented forms of knowledge.