Outsourcing : Volume and Composition of R&D

This paper examines the impact of outsourcing of production on the volume and composition of home country’s research and development. We find that outsourcing decreases process R&D of the multinational firm in large markets when it only conducts process R&D (the substitution effect between outsourcing and process R&D). Outsourcing tends to emerge as a complementary factor to product development when the multinational firm conducts both product R&D and process R&D (the complementary effect between outsourcing and product R&D) under some conditions. This implies that international outsourcing has a different effect on product innovation and process innovation