The technological innovation of multinational corporations in the French regions - article ; n°1 ; vol.109, pg 9-28

Siraona Iammarino, John Cantwell

Description

Revue d'économie industrielle - Année 2005 - Volume 109 - Numéro 1 - Pages 9-28
In a rapidly globalising economy, and particularly in the face of a process of economic integration such as that occurring in the EU, regions forge an increasing number of linkages with other locations within and across national boundaries through the local technological development efforts of multinational corporations (MNCs). By using patents granted to the largest industrial firms - arranged by the region (NUTS 1) host to the research facility responsible - the paper explores the location of innovative activities of MNCs in France, and the relationship between the profiles of technological specialisation of foreign-owned and indigenous companies in the French regions.
Dans le processus de globalisation de nos économies, et particulièrement face au processus d'intégration économique à l'œuvre en Europe, les régions mettent en place de plus en plus de liens avec d'autres lieux dans et en dehors des frontières nationales à travers les efforts de développement technologique des entreprises multinationales. En utilisant les brevets des grandes entreprises industrielles - appréhendées par la région (NUTS1) abritant les capacités de recherche - l'article explore la localisation des activités innovatrices des multinationales en France, et la relation entre les profils de spécialisation technologique des entreprises étrangères et des entreprises indigènes dans les régions françaises.
20 pages
Source : Persée ; Ministère de la jeunesse, de l’éducation nationale et de la recherche, Direction de l’enseignement supérieur, Sous-direction des bibliothèques et de la documentation.

Informations

• Publié par: REVUE_D-ECONOMIE_INDUSTRIELLE
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2005
• Nombre de lectures: 17
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

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John Cantwell
Simona Iammarino
The technological innovation of multinational corporations in the
French regions
In: Revue d'économie industrielle. Vol. 109. 1er trimestre 2005. pp. 9-28.
Abstract
In a rapidly globalising economy, and particularly in the face of a process of economic integration such as that occurring in the
EU, regions forge an increasing number of linkages with other locations within and across national boundaries through the local
technological development efforts of multinational corporations (MNCs). By using patents granted to the largest industrial firms -
arranged by the region (NUTS 1) host to the research facility responsible - the paper explores the location of innovative activities
of MNCs in France, and the relationship between the profiles of technological specialisation of foreign-owned and indigenous
companies in the French regions.
Résumé
Dans le processus de globalisation de nos économies, et particulièrement face au processus d'intégration économique à l'œuvre
en Europe, les régions mettent en place de plus en plus de liens avec d'autres lieux dans et en dehors des frontières nationales à
travers les efforts de développement technologique des entreprises multinationales. En utilisant les brevets des grandes
entreprises industrielles - appréhendées par la région (NUTS1) abritant les capacités de recherche - l'article explore la
localisation des activités innovatrices des multinationales en France, et la relation entre les profils de spécialisation technologique
des entreprises étrangères et des entreprises indigènes dans les régions françaises.
Citer ce document / Cite this document :
Cantwell John, Iammarino Simona. The technological innovation of multinational corporations in the French regions. In: Revue
d'économie industrielle. Vol. 109. 1er trimestre 2005. pp. 9-28.
doi : 10.3406/rei.2005.3062
http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/rei_0154-3229_2005_num_109_1_3062John CANTWELL
Rutgers Business School and University of Reading
and Simona IAMMARINO
SPRU, University of Sussex and University of Rome "La Sapienza"
THE TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION
OF MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS
IN THE FRENCH REGIONS
Mots-clés : entreprises multinationales, innovation technologie, systèmes régionaux.
Key words : Multinational Corporations, Technological Innovation. Regional Systems.
I. - INTRODUCTION
The nexus between global and local processes has been investigated quite
extensively by the literature of the most recent years. One particular and cru
cial aspect of such a relationship lies in the creation and diffusion of innovat
ion, which, more than other economic processes, show rather complex pat
terns of distribution across space.
Indeed, as emphasised by Dicken, '"global' and 'local' are not fixed scales;
rather, they represent the extreme points of a dialectical continuum of complex
mutual interactions" (Dicken, 1994, p. 103). As a consequence, neither the
orthodox approach - which traditionally considers both the (multinational)
firm and the local system as black boxes whose behaviours are determined by
exogenous factors; nor an entirely endogenous perspective - which tends to
explain structure and growth mechanisms as the result of purely internal
forces - seem appropriate to investigate the issue 'global versus local'. Rather,
structure and behaviour of the two "extreme points" need to be considered
within the context of their increasing interdependence, including both endoge
nous determinants and exogenous variables relevant to the analysis.
Following the line of our previous studies, this paper presents an analysis of
the location patterns of multinational firms' innovative activities in France.
REVUE D'ÉCONOMIE INDUSTRIELLE — n° 109, Ie- trimestre 2005 9 The paper is divided into five sections. The following section summarises the
conceptual framework for the empirical study carried out here. After a short
description of the data used for the empirical investigation, section three ana
lyses the geographical distribution of innovative activities of large firms, both
indigenous and foreign-owned, across the French regions in the period 1969-
95. Section four documents the characteristics of the hierarchy of regional
research centres in France, by testing the relationship between the profiles of
technological specialisation in foreign-owned and indigenous French firms. As
we have suggested elsewhere, differences in the regional capacity of attraction
of high value added activities serve as a prerequisite to unveiling the potential
technological communication (or technological spillovers) that may be in exis
tence within these regions and, indeed, across EU national boundaries. Finally,
section five highlights the main implications that can be drawn, and our futu
re research agenda.
II. - MULTI NATIONAL CORPORATIONS, TECHNOLOGICAL
INNOVATION AND EUROPEAN REGIONS
It is widely accepted that the organisation of innovative activities can no lon
ger be illustrated simply on the basis of concepts such as the dichotomy of
market-hierarchies and the transaction costs mechanism as fundamental expla
nations of internalisation/externalisation of capabilities, functions and assets.
Indeed, the trend has been increasingly observed for multinational corpora
tions (MNCs) to establish internal (intra-firm) and external (inter-firm) net
works for innovation, which are characterised by different levels of territorial
and social embeddedness with reference to the location which hosts them.
Regions, even belonging to the same nation-State, show different characterist
ics that determine the degree of attractiveness and the amount of spillovers
that a region is able to draw. The choice of a particular location for a MNC to
invest in research and development activities is thus driven by several factors,
which can be summarised as "social capability" and "technological congruen
ce" (Abramovitz, 1986; Fagerberg, Verspagen and von Tunzelman, 1994).
While the first refers to the overall ability of the region to engage in innovati
ve and organisation processes, the latter points to the distance of the region
from the technological frontier, or, in other words, its capacity to implement
the technical properties connected to the new knowledge.
Furthermore, it has been shown that MNC affiliates abroad have assumed a
predominant role in an increasing proportion of all the most advanced technol
ogies. The interpretation given is twofold: on the one hand, the ceaseless rel
evance of local innovation processes as reservoirs of different technical expert
ise in the globalisation era, and on the other, the outgrowth of an "organisa
tional capital" which allows the integration of several related technological
competencies across geographically dispersed units (Zander, 1997). Thus, the
development of cross-border corporate integration and intra-border inter-com
pany sectoral integration, as new forms of governance, makes it increasingly
1 0 REVUE D'ÉCONOMIE INDUSTRIELLE — n° 109, 1er trimestre 2005 important to examine where and how innovative activity by MNCs is interna
tionally dispersed and regionally concentrated (1).
Whilst the establishment in a foreign location facilitates the monitoring of
developments in different technological fields, it also enables the extraction of
local knowledge for MNC global networks (Cantwell, 1992, 1995; Chesnais,
1992; Granstrand and Sjolander, 1992; Dunning & Wymbs. 1997). In the case
of the former, the firm is likely to be active abroad in technologies where comp
lementarity between the strength of the host economy and its own expertise
exists. In the case of the latter, a firm locates its research facility abroad to
exploit the technological advantage of the host region either to reinforce its
own competence or to alleviate its weakness at home. On this basis, it was the
refore suggested that, behind location choices related to innovation, there are
the two typical types of agglomeration forces, which operate differently across
regions. The first can be termed "localisation economies", which are sector-
specific and tend to intensify intra-border sectoral integration through local
external networks between foreign-owned affiliates, indigenous firms and
local non-market institutions. The second are referred to as general external
economies, or "urbanisation economies", which attract all kinds of economic
activities and tend to strengthen cross-border intra-firm integration, allowing
the feedback of knowledge, expertise and information within networks of affi
liates.
Arising from this differentiation of agglomeration economies, it became pos
sible to distinguish between higher order and intermediate regional
centres (2). Such centres arise "as a consequence of the interaction and the
intensity of general external economies and localisation economies, which in
turn depend upon the characteristics of the regional system considered"
(Cantwell and lammarino, 1998, p. 387). Whilst in the case of an intermediat