Globalization of R&D and open innovation: linkages of foreign R&D centers in India

Abstract

In the new form of Globalization of R&D, Multinational (MNEs) firms have established their R&D units in emerging Asian countries, particularly in India and China. In the 1980s MNEs located their R&D units in their country of origin and were very reluctant to go offshore beyond triad (USA, Western Europe and Japan). However, in the last decade there is a growing trend of MNEs going emerging markets such as India and China. Beside this, sourcing knowledge from globally dispersed knowledge hubs is also one of the major motives of this emerging trend. These foreign R&D centers have developed linkages with the other actors of the host economy to build their assets. This study has investigated the linkage patterns of foreign firms in India from an in-house developed database. The ICT sector is considered as a test case to investigate the linkages of foreign firms with the Indian entities. The study observed that most of the foreign firms are collaborating with the other foreign firms located in India. Next to the foreign firms, Indian firms are preferable compared to university or government research institutes. It shows that industry-academia linkages are quite weak in India. Foreign firms' embededness with the local innovation system is only by linking with the local firms. Although, India has very strong government research laboratories, these are not playing important role in collaborating with the foreign firms. From the policy perspective, industry -academia linkages needs to be strengthened. MNEs enter markets such as India not only for potential markets and 'cheap' skilled human resources but also for knowledge and technology base emerging in the knowledge hubs of these countries. Also, most of the collaboration happens in peripheral (joint development) rather than core domain (joint R&D). Many of the firms are going for 'Open Innovation' mode to build up their assets in India.

Dismantling of the Inverted U-Curve of Open Innovation

“…The difference of knowledge amount of the industry a firm belongs to, as well as its sector, regional innovation system, or national innovation, is equated with the environment conditions of the firm. Besides, time diversely appears in the literature reviews, such as the four-phase model, in leveraging external sources of innovation, changes in business volume and business innovation, or various time contexts of technological innovation [17].…”

“…Although advancing the technology of simulation in the social sciences requires appreciating its unique value as a third method of doing science in contrast to both induction and deduction, simulation can be an effective tool for discovering surprising consequences of simple assumptions [17]. There are several examples of simulation research in social science, such as a simple agent model of an epidemic, a stochastic cellular automata model of innovation diffusion, and an agent-based simulation of policy-induced diffusion of smart meters [28][29][30].…”

Brand relationships and risk: influence of risk avoidance and gender on brand consumption

“…Various open innovation cases from research based social labs to global R&D centers across countries (Krishna et al, 2012;Patra and Krishna, 2015), to innovations at public space design (Pancholi et al, 2015), to innovations between university and industry (Sutthijakra and Intarakumnerd, 2015), to industrial textile clusters (Gulrajani, 2006) can be applied to those at fashion industry. Open innovations from fashion industry can provide potential opportunities for fashion companies as a strong social institution to link between fashion, technology and society (See Krishna (2014) …”

Configuring an alliance portfolio for eco-friendly innovation in the car industry: Hyundai and Toyota

“…This study investigates the dynamics of strategic innovative network in the Asian eco-friendly car market and shows the configuration of an alliance portfolio to access this market using Toyota and Hyundai as examples. Previous studies emphasized the importance of open innovation through cooperation between individuals, companies, universities, institutions, and governments (Douglas 2015;Kwon et al 2015;Patra and Krishna 2015;Theinsathid et al 2009;Yun et al 2016), and discussed the challenges of market access and sustainability (Álvarez-Chávez et al 2012;Iles and Martin 2013;Rudge et al 2005). However, there are no previous studies into innovation in collaborative innovation networks and the innovation capability of a firm in the bioplastic industry.In this study, we first identify the difference of the collaboration network between the leading company and the follower in the automotive bioplastic market.…”