The internationalization of corporate research and development (R&D) is an increasing trend with implications for both R&D managers and policy makers. In this research, 62 foreign-owned R&D facilities from information and communication technology (ICT) industries as well as life sciences industries are examined at five locations throughout the world to find global and regional trends in the internationalization of R&D. More specifically, models are identified based on how foreign R&D facilities select locations, enter the selected locations, and integrate with the environment at these locations. The increasing speed of global technological change, the increasing complexity of knowledge, and shortening product lifecycles are leading to intensified competition between technology companies on the one hand, but also between technology regions on the other hand. Increasing understanding of the entry and integration processes of foreign-owned R&D facilities as the internationalization of R&D progresses can thus be of value to both R&D managers and policy makers. This research shows how the "diversity of modern capitalism" (Amable, 2003; Hall and Soskice, 2001), especially relating to institutions in different regional environments, impacts the entry and integration behavior of foreign-owned R&D facilities that set up operations abroad. The internationalization of R&D is an especially interesting field of research as it is inextricably connected with both business- and economics-driven dimensions of innovation. In fact, the phenomenon of a foreign-owned R&D facility implies that a company innovation system must in some way integrate with a regional innovation system. A "micro meets macro" approach is especially interesting taking into account regional governments ongoing efforts to make their regions more attractive to international R&D investment, while global companies at the same time actively seek to gain access to leading knowledge resources, which in turn are asymmetrically and globally dispersed throughout leading regions around the world. Which factors determine companies R&D location decisions, entry behavior, and integration behavior in such complex global environments? How does entry and integration behavior vary between different regions of the world? The existing theory does not provide the answers. The starting point to gain a structured insight into this field of research was to identify some leading locations for foreign-owned R&D around the world, and to generate some sort of generic conceptual model enabling a comparison of these innovation environments. The second step was to examine the characteristics of the foreign-owned R&D going on at these locations. Next, in order to gain insight into the entry and integration behavior as indicated by the title of this research, foreign-owned facilities in each of the regions were examined in terms of (1) why they came to conduct R&D in the region, (2) how they entered the region to set up R&D activities, and (3) how they used different kinds of human resources and networks to become integral players in the local R&D environment. The result of the research is a collection of detailed case studies based on quantitative data comparing how the phenomenon of R&D internationalization manifests itself in each of the five presented regional environments. This research can be used as a work of reference to gain insight into which factors can play a role in determining location, entry, and integration behavior in the internationalization of R&D. Once again it must be added however, that due to the relatively small size of the international population of foreign-owned R&D facilities and the high levels of its heterogeneity, the insight gained in this study cannot claim to be globally representative. The research takes an explorative and deductive approach to enable a basic understanding of the highly heterogeneous field. Face-to-face interviews using structured and semi-structured questionnaires lead to the identification of five generic types of regions for foreign R&D. Each of these region-types is specific in terms of the entry- and integration-behavior of foreign-owned R&D facilities located there. In addition, the empirical study formulates several generic dimensions by which different types of foreign-owned R&D facilities can be characterized. Understanding different region- and facility-types as they relate to location selection, entry, and integration may enable R&D managers to improve the competitiveness of their global R&D efforts, while enabling regional policy makers to improve the competitiveness of their regions as recipients of foreign direct investment (FDI) in technology-related sectors.
