Research Activities in Internationalized Medium Sized Firms: A Productive Centricity

Abstract

This study focuses on Internationalised Medium-Sized Firms (IMSFs) that belong to the sectors of mechanics and electronics, and operate in dynamic international business markets. This work aims to investigate how international competitive strategies are based and maybe in some cases actually heavily dependent on the capacity to form and enhance skills in design, engineering and production activities, and on the propensity to invest more resources in R&D activities as well as in activities that are more strictly speaking production based (manufacturing). This study highlights different approaches to innovation processes in the same or in different plants of the IMSFs analysed. Our research approach is inductive and deductive, which means our aim is directed towards theory building through the original use of existing theory from both international managerial literature and empirical analysis. Overall, this study provides a unique contribution in terms of both theoretical development and managerial implications by investigating the two activities (operations and R&D activities) with the aspects of global development.