The Innovative Performance of Foreign-owned Enterprises in Small Open Economies

This paper compares the innovative performance of foreign-owned and domestically owned enterprises in five European countries. We look at innovation inputs, outputs, and examine how strong foreign-owned enterprises are embedded in the innovations systems of their host countries. We find that foreign ownership causes no differences in innovation input, but yields a higher innovation output and higher labour productivity. In four of the five countries, affiliates of foreign multinationals show a similar or even a higher propensity to co-operate with domestic partners than domestically owned enterprises