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

<P>Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.</P><br>Western multinationals are now increasingly locating their research and development (R and D) activities in the emerging economies of China and India. This offshoring of innovation raises the following questions for policy makers and multinational firms: <br>
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1) What is the extent and nature of outsourcing and offshoring innovation, especially to emerging economies like India and China?<br>
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2) What are the main drivers of the globalisation of innovation? <br>
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Answering these questions involved collecting secondary data on the R and D locations of the world’s largest multinationals, namely the Fortune 500 companies (minus financial service firms). The sample covers a wide range of industries, including pharmaceuticals, chemicals, electronics, engineering, and equipment manufacturing. <br>
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Data were collected in four 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 and 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 and 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 and D centres with the addresses of inventors of patents assigned in the last three 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.<br>
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Further information is available from the <a href="http://www.esrc.ac.uk/my-esrc/grants/RES-331-27-0010/read" title="Off-shoring and Outsourcing Innovation? The New Challenge for Multinationals">Off-shoring and Outsourcing Innovation? The New Challenge for Multinationals<a/> ESRC Award web page.<br>
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These data are under embargo at the request of the depositor until 1 January 2012.<br><br><B>Main Topics</B>:<BR><br>The dataset includes variables covering:<ul><li>revenues</li><li>profits</li><li>industry of company</li><li>country location of R and D centres</li></ul>