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A case for Non-Globalisation?
Strategic R&D in Wireless Telecommunications

Alberto Di Minin and Christopher Palmberg

Abstract

The off-shoring of manufacturing has been the most visible ingredient of economic globalisation in recent years. However, the rapid change in the global division of manufacturing has overshadowed another phenomenon, namely the internationalisation of Research and Development (R&D) and inventive activities of firms. In concrete terms this means that researchers and inventors increasingly tend to be located outside the domestic country of origin of companies, as captured in numerous empirical studies. Pressing research questions thus concern the degree to which inventor networks are internationalising, which types of R&D this covers, and how this internationalisation affects the R&D strategies of companies and their home countries. This paper contributes to these questions by revisiting the “non-globalisation” argument in the specific context of strategically important technologies in a truly global industry by the face of it, namely the wireless telecommunications industry. In a comparative set-up, the notified essential patents of four leading incumbents are analysed to assess to what degree and how R&D and inventive activity of this technological core of the industry is globalising. Contrary to expectation, results clearly support the case for non-globalisation and suggest that modifications have to be made to sweeping generalisations concerning the internationalisation of R&D. They also raise important issues and new research paths related to the organisation of R&D, locational advantages and the Intellectual Property Rights management of firms.

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