The frontier of international technology networks: sourcing abroad the most highly tacit capability

The increasing geographical dispersion of corporate R&D has been identified as a major feature of the current ICT-based paradigm. Following the finding that innovation which depends most upon tacit knowledge (in the science-based fields, and in the enhancement of a firm’s core competence) tends to remain more agglomerated in the parent company, this paper analyses certain firm-specific cases in which the creation of even science-based and industry-specific core technologies is dispersed internationally. It seems that the main factors driving the occasional geographical dispersion of the creation of these kinds of otherwise highly localised technologies are either locally embedded specialisation which cannot be accessed elsewhere, or company-specific global strategies that utilise the development of an organisationally complex international network for technological learning.