Coordinating R&D activities in multinational companies: towards new tools and practices?

Over the past few decades, scholars have shown a growing interest in the topic of innovation processes in multinational enterprises (MNE). Management systems of MNEs are complex, mainly because of the geographical dispersion of their activities. The internationalisation of the value-chain raises critical questions linked to the coordination of innovation processes. The objective of this paper is twofold: (1) to contribute to a better understanding of coordination mechanisms of innovation processes in multinational enterprises, and (2) to propose new tools and practices that can be used by MNEs to efficiently manage their innovation processes.