Edwige Chassagneux: The globalisation of industrial R&D. Analysis and modelling of the dynamics of R&D centres located abroad using the concept of proximity.

The research presented in this document focuses on the dynamics of industrial R&D centres based abroad.

Like Ronstadt (1978), Asakawa (2001) and Asakawa & Som (2008), we observe that the role and position of R&D centres within a firm’s internal innovation network are evolving. We have modelled this evolution in four distinct phases: the establishment of the centre; the dual phase of building its identity through integration into the firm’s internal innovation network and the development of its external innovation network; and finally, the centre’s maturity. We then sought to understand how the centre moved from its establishment phase, during which it does not yet have its own identity, to its maturity phase, where it has succeeded in specialising and becoming a key element of the firm’s internal innovation network. We characterised each stage of the centre’s evolution by the types of relationships between the centre, its internal innovation network and its local environment.

To achieve this, we drew on the literature on clusters, which has examined the types of links required for the exchange of knowledge and expertise and for building relationships of trust between multiple organisations, looking beyond the mere consideration of their geographical proximity. This literature provides a tool that is rarely utilised in the literature on the globalisation of R&D: proximities (Boschma, 2005). We used six types of proximity to understand and analyse how an R&D centre established abroad evolved: geographical, organised institutional, unorganised institutional, structural, cognitive and social proximity. Our work shows that each phase of the centre’s evolution is characterised by a specific architecture of proximities between the centre, its internal innovation network and its local environment. To arrive at these results and to validate them, we combined several methodological tools: 1/ we established and facilitated a focus group comprising industrial R&D managers on the theme of R&D globalisation over a two-year period; 2/ we studied the R&D centres established in Bangalore by four multinational companies: ABB, AkzoNobel, Procter & Gamble and Siemens; 3/ finally, we drew on a large number of ‘mini-cases’, gathered during informal interviews or meetings relating to the issue of R&D globalisation; All of this empirical work was carried out as part of a CIFRE thesis in collaboration with the European Industrial Research Management Association (EIRMA).