On the Importance of Knowledge Augmenting Research: An Empirical Investigation

Discussions and debates among scholars on "techno-globalism" and "techno-nationalism" centre on the significance of knowledge augmenting or basic research in the R&D activities of multinational firms. Not every researcher, however, shares this dichotomy [see Archibugi & Michie, 1995] but, it seems true to suggest that both groups are concerned with this type of research. The "globalisers" - i.e. those who support the hypothesis that the production of technology is being globalised put so much emphasis on the role that basic research in overseas locations plays in advancing the competitiveness of the multinational firms. Similarly those who advance an alternative hypothesis seem to argue on the same ground, i.e. to maintain their competitiveness; multinational firms would keep the core of their technology production at home. In this paper, our aim is to investigate the importance of basic research in the conduct of other research activities by multinational firms. A sample of 234 Japanese firms located in the European Union has been chosen for our empirical investigation.