Integrating research and development in the subsidiaries of transnational companies: cultural and other issues

The implications of globalization and subcontracting in high tech areas of engineering and software are gaining increasing attention from the media. This paper investigates some of these implications and relates them to such questions as the appropriate degree of integration in the direction being taken by research and development divisions of transnational companies. The authors present a case for considering the high sensitivity of R&D creativity to links with the local environment. Successful decentralization of R&D development is shown to be contingent on effective approaches to organisational learning including some consideration of cultural issues. Once the importance to R&D of supporting and nurturing relations between different parts of the organization is acknowledged, so also must investment in infrastructure to support and extend the flexibility of its communication systems