Internationalization of corporate technology through strategic partnering: an empirical investigation

Abstract

This paper explores some trends in the internationalization of corporate R & D efforts, innovation output and strategic technology partnering in the past decade. Inter-firm strategic technology partnering, through which companies share their innovation efforts, supplements the standard indicators of technological competence to broaden the scope from internal innovation processes to a wider range of innovative activities. The international information technology industry is singled out for empirical study. The main conclusion of this contribution is that, even in a ‘global’ industry such as information technology, internationalization of innovation, although by no means insignificant, appears less important than expected.