BUILDING EXTERNAL NETWORKS AND ITS EFFECT ON THE PERFORMANCE OF OVERSEAS R&D BASE
Abstract
This paper examines the relationship between R&D collaborations with local organizations in the host countries and the performance of overseas R&D bases, considering the types of collaborations. The result of an empirical analysis shows that, while collaborations with local companies in the same industry of the host country just enhance the efficiency of R&D activities, those with local universities, public research institutions, and companies in the different industries increase the overall R&D performance including the efficiency of R&D activities and the quality of technological outputs. Also, as a factor that enables companies to build external networks, the effect of the nationality of top manager and researchers of R&D bases is investigated. The result demonstrates that R&D bases with top managers from the home countries are less active in developing R&D collaborations with local universities and that, as the percentage of the researchers from the home countries increases, the R&D bases tend to develop R&D collaborations with local companies in the same industry, but they do not develop those with local universities and other research institutions.