Introduction and overview

In earlier years, industrial research and development (R&D) laboratories were exclusively located at a firm’s headquarters. One company in the chemical industry even had two central laboratories serving different groups of strategic business units at its headquarters, before disbanding the concept of central laboratories almost totally and adopting a concept of internationally dispersed R&D investment centers. Today, even within one industry and among the biggest global players, we can observe firms which have spread their R&D laboratories all over the globe as well as those which have centralized these activities. For instance, we can observe both of these phenomena in the chemical industry.