Internationalisation of R&D and Global Nature of Innovation: Emerging Trends in India

Abstract

Till the end of 1980s, offshoring of R&D (Research and Development) by TNCs (Trans National Corporations) were mainly confined to industrially advanced countries, particularly among the 'Triad' (US, Europe and Japan). Even if TNCs moved to the developing countries, during the early to mid-1990s, their R&D activities were mainly restricted to 'one way technology transfer' or oriented towards 'adaptive R&D' rather than 'creative R&D'. This study finds that during the last two decades, this paradigm has changed significantly. India has emerged as an important destination for about 471 TNCs with about 649 R&D units. Indian R&D and innovation threshold has moved up quite dramatically in the last decade to transform from 'one way' to two-way knowledge transfer. Now many foreign R&D units are developing products from India for their global product mandate. The exploration of TNCs and their impact in the Indian context advances the view that India is emerging as an important partner in the globalization of innovation. Another important trend of globalization and the global nature of innovation emerging is the rise of the Indian firms that expand business and link up with the global production networks.

Global Collaborative Patents

“…Rauch and Trindade (2002) and subsequent work highlights the importance of these connections for companies making di¤erentiated products; Saxenian et al (2002) and Saxenian (2006) emphasize how global ethnic connections facilitate fragmented production, modular development, and rapid product cycles; and Kerr (2008) stresses the role of 1 Related work on global teams and mobility for patenting includes Lissoni (2001, 2009), Guellec and Van Pottelsberghe (2001), Gri¢ th, Redding, and Van Reneen (2004), Singh (2005), Maggioni, Nosvelli, and Uberti (2007), Bergek and Bruzelius (2010), Picci (2010), Alnuami, George, andSingh (2012), Huang, HueiRu, andChen (2012), Krishna, Patra, and Bhattacharya (2012), Miguelez (2013), Miguelez and Moreno (2013), Montobbio and Sterzi (2013), Breschi, Lissoni, and Miguelez (2015), and Freeman and Huang (2015).…”

Multinationals’ R&D in China and India

“…On the other hand, China is attractive for its low-cost labor and new customer markets, with only 11 % of executives listing R&D activities, less than half the percentage listed for India. This likely refl ects a (Krishna et al 2012 ). Table 12.2 shows the total patents by company, according to the USPTO, registered between 2006 and 2010 by inventors living in India (Basant and Mani 2012 ).…”

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) …”