This study deals with the organisation of innovation projects of multinational companies. The focus is on learning processes which occur within the company group as well as those taking place between the company and its regional environment. This work establishes a bridge between organisational and regional learning. Three dilemmas of innovation can thereby be identified: the dilemma between formalisation and flexibilisation mirrors that organisations are defined as stable and structured entities whilst innovation is a process of renewal and change. The configuration dilemma reflects the choice between a concentrated setting and international dispersal of innovation activities. The dilemma of regional (dis)embeddedness points at the tension between exploiting available resources and pursuing a regionally detached strategy. Qualitative case-studies of specific innovation projects provide empirical in-depth insights. This book was awarded the first prize in the catagory Dissertations of the Weser-Ems-Wissenschaftspreis 2011.

In recent decades, there have been significant changes in the way corporate innovation activities are performed. They include changes in the innovation process, flexibility to outsource certain innovation activities, and by far, the most important one, wider choice in the location of innovation. What caught the most attention of is the trend towards globalization of research and development (R&D) and thereby performance of innovation activities away from the home countries. The main concerns relate to the two new trends: First, the multinational corporations (MNCs) locating strategic innovation activities in some countries outside the industrialized world, which can be referred to as ‘emerging economies’; and Second, since 2000, some companies from the emerging economies have started entering the global markets with innovative products and services, developed through their own R&D. Both these new developments have managerial implications for companies and policy implications for the host countries (where such R&D is performed), as well as for the home countries of the companies. Further, innovative products and services resulting from R&D activities in emerging economies seem to better address the needs of consumers at the bottom-of-the-pyramid in other developing countries. This book explores and analyzes these issues. This research presented in Global Innovation in Emerging Economies is applicable to both the industrialized and developing worlds, although from different perspectives – the former would like to prevent relocation of R&D from their countries, and the latter want more of R&D-related investments.

In globalising economies, particularly those going through a process of economic integration such as those economies within the EU, regions forge an increasing number of linkages with other locations within and across national borders. This is largely carried out by the technological efforts of Multinational Corporations (MNCs). This book explores the regional dimension of Europe in terms of localised technological comparative advantages and the location of innovative activities by MNCs. Using an empirical analysis John Cantwell and Simona Iammarino cover such important themes as: *MNC technological activities and economic wealth *MNCs and the regional systems of innovation in Italy, UK, Germany and France *the geographical hierarchy across European national borders.

'This wonderful volume brings together contributions mainly from the innovation literature, whose findings are in a sense quite familiar, but which in this collection are juxtaposed in such a way as to highlight their common institutional underpinnings. This is very much due to the efforts of the editor, whose insightful introduction and editorial vision brings out several interesting and emerging themes from this collection of papers. I think this volume breaks new ground in highlighting the embeddedness of MNE subsidiaries in multiple contexts, and it will be of considerable interest to scholars engaged with institutional analysis. However, I also believe that researchers interested in regional embeddedness, the geography of innovation, and knowledge management will find new angles to their work in this collected volume.' – Sarianna M. Lundan, University of Bremen, Germany Multinational companies are crucial actors in a global knowledge-based economy, combining the advantages of global and locally coordinated production and innovation strategies with specific regional and national factors. This book questions how MNCs can best exploit institutionally embedded knowledge, explores the utilization of external institutionally embedded knowledge in corporate innovation processes, and addresses the challenges of embeddedness. The expert contributors draw on managerial, economic, geographic and sociological perspectives to explore the essential roles of regional and national knowledge infrastructures and the cultural and political environment of MNCs. They build upon, update, and extend the discussion on the regional and national embeddedness of MNCs with new country case studies and comparative analyses, focussing on the relationship between innovation in companies and regional studies. Significantly, the book also establishes a link between two important debates that have hitherto been largely disconnected: Regional studies and international business studies separately address issues that fall within the scope of the book, but do not provide an integrated analysis of the embeddedness of MNCs. This pathbreaking book goes some way to fill this gap in the literature and as such, will prove invaluable to academics, R&D managers, regional policy makers and students with an interest in international business, business economics, regional studies and organization studies.

The book assumes an original place in the literature. . . Castellani and Zanfei show that the economic impact of MNEs on innovation and productivity depends on evolutionary features of firms and industries, particularly on the heterogeneity of firm strategies and behaviours. . . this volume contains high-quality, well-written research. . . Simona Iammarino, Research Policy . . . this book offers the reader a well-written and very comprehensive analysis on the link between innovation and internalization which leads to insights into firm heterogeneity. The authors have succeeded in synthesizing the vast body of theoretical and empirical research and given an up-to-date overview of the various issues involved. This is then complemented with their own research findings. . . The book will undoubtedly enrich the debate on the behavior and impact of MNEs. Yama Temouri, Journal of International Business Studies Davide Castellani and Antonello Zanfei, two well-known Italian economists, have brought forth an excellent new book. . . I think this book will serve as a starting-point for many interesting studies, both because of its findings and because of its empirical and theoretical rigour. . . the book lays an excellent and empirically well founded foundation that opens the way for what we need most in research on the international innovatory activities and R&D configurations of MNCs: intrafirm data and the study of intrafirm processes, configurations and specific interactions with the host country environment. The book to me is an important step in moving innovation research forward in this direction. . . I am sure that this book will serve as a thought-provoking starting point for many future studies on firms international innovatory activities and therefore recommend it without any reservation. Marcus M. Keupp, Creativity and Innovation Management Castellani and Zanfei have developed an original and comprehensive analysis of the role of multinational firms in the transfer, creation and diffusion of technology. By developing their view of the multinationals as double network institutions , the authors provide new insights on a variety of key issues at the frontier of economics of international production and innovation. This book is thought-provoking, incisive and topical, and should be required reading for both economists and policymakers alike. Rajneesh Narula, University of Reading, UK Castellani and Zanfei present an in-depth theoretical and empirical analysis of the key issues underpinning the relationship between innovation and multinationality. This book is strongly-recommended reading for any researcher working on innovation or multinationality or the interface between the two. Grazia Ietto-Gillies, London South Bank University, UK This book gets to the root of how and why multinational firms differ in the cross-border creation, transfer and diffusion of technology, and provides fresh evidence on the effects that these differences have on productivity and innovation in the economic systems in which they are active. Davide Castellani and Antonello Zanfei consider multinationals as heterogeneous institutions that combine internal networks of subsidiaries with external networks of collaborative linkages, to bridge different economic and innovation systems. They examine heterogeneity in productivity and innovative behaviour between multinational and national firms, as well as across and within multinationals. The authors argue that not every foreign firm is a good source of externality, and not every domestic firm is equally well placed to benefit from multinationals. It is shown that spillovers from multinationals differ according to the technological profiles, embeddedness and linkage creation of both foreign and domestic firms active in local markets. The book supports this view with empirical evidence based on illustrative case studies, and on econometric analysis using extensive firm-level datasets on multinati

Innovation Spaces in Asia provides insight into how and why Asia is poised to impact global innovation. Asia is undergoing rapid developments in markets, sources of technology and user preferences. A key characteristic of the book is the rich empirical