Networking and R&D in domestic and FDI plants in Spanish electronics clusters

To fully understand foreign affiliates’ behaviour in regional agglomerations (hereafter RAs), we argue it would be useful to analyze the networking patterns of such affiliates in reference to domestic firms within the local market environment. Consequently, we examined 184 electronics plants, 2 both...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Holl, Adelheid, Rama Dellepiane, Ruth
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2009
País:España
Institución:Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Repositorio:DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC
OAI Identifier:oai:dnet:digitalcsic_::4acdf9e9df8c19fd833c77e9d17f4321
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10261/16110
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Business networks
Cooperation
Subcontracting
R&D
Innovativeness
Multinational enterprises
Affiliates and domestic firms
Electronics sector
Regional agglomerations
Descripción
Sumario:To fully understand foreign affiliates’ behaviour in regional agglomerations (hereafter RAs), we argue it would be useful to analyze the networking patterns of such affiliates in reference to domestic firms within the local market environment. Consequently, we examined 184 electronics plants, 2 both domestic and foreign, in three Spanish RAs. The FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) plants show patterns of cooperation similar to those of clustered domestic plants, involving joint R&D, outsourcing, and other types of inter-firm collaboration. FDI plants are, in some respects, less embedded in RAs than are domestic plants. Domestic market-seeking FDI’s, probably as a strategy to adapt products to the domestic market, tend to collaborate more with regional partners than do export-seeking FDI’s. FDI plants consider within-group subcontracting relationships as more important than do domestic multiplant companies. Nevertheless, the former apparently integrate both intra-firm and inter-firm subcontracting in their strategy. On the other hand, R&D-intensive FDI plants tend to stay away from collaboration with other companies, probably to avoid involuntary spillovers of their knowledge.