Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
most popular location for foreign-owned research after Baden
Wuerttemberg. Turning to the technological profiles across the
sub-national economies, a very clear dichotomy between
higher
order
and
intermediate
regional research locations emerges from
the regression analysis. In the South East region of the UK,
Lombardia in Italy, Bassin Parisien in France and all six German
regions, statistical support was found for the thesis that these
regions attract foreign-owned firms not because of their exist-
ing indigenous technological specialization. Foreign firms are
attracted there because of the wider technological competencies
and infrastructural supports available (i.e. banking, finance, insur-
ance and business services, degree of openness to foreign-owned
investors, business climate, corporate and enterprise culture, and
so on). The technological activity of foreign-owned and indigenous
firms in these regions is typically broad ranging in nature and
extends across a spectrum of, often general purpose, technolo-
gies. These regions have been labeled as
higher order
locations in
the geographical hierarchy, both within the national boundaries and
even in the wider European context. In the case of Île de France,
which emerged as the main technological core of France both for
foreign and indigenous research, the
aggregate
patenting activity
of foreign firms located in the region is dependent upon the tech-
nological specialization of indigenous firms. This result is puzzling
only at a first glance, because the regional comparative advan-
tages of Île de France lie, in the main, right in leading these general
purpose technologies: thus, this is consistent with the region being
included in the higher order group of regional cores. The results for
the other Italian, British and French regions suggest the presence
of
intermediate
research locations. Technological specialization
profiles of foreign-owned firms were found to be closely correlated
with those of the indigenous technological expertise, also over
time, so that knowledge spillovers are likely to be intra-sectoral
in nature. This is consistent with the hypothesis that
intermediate
regions attract the innovative activities of foreign-owned MNCs
because of a very particular set of sectorally-specific expertise on
offer in that region. By basing research facilities in such locations,
foreign-owned MNCs may be able to upgrade their own techno-
logical capabilities in particular technological fields which may be
sub-sets of their own major areas of technological interest.
Source:
Adapted from Cantwell and Iammarino 2002.
