International Integration and Mandates of Innovative Subsidiaries in Spain

In this paper, we develop a general framework that integrates diverse driving mechanisms of subsidiaries evolving towards competence creating mandates. The relevant process is the mutual relationship between innovation scope and the internationalization of the market as the primary channel for learning in subsidiaries, and how the opportunity for units to gain competence creating mandates is notably influenced by their embeddedness in export networks. This has direct implications for increasing the international channels for learning and indirectly in terms of the effectiveness of host country development. The framework is applied to a sample of firms in the Spanish economy, a country that does not hold a leading position economically and technologically inside the EU bloc, which suggests that the evidence may be suitable for generalizing the organization and network embeddedness of other catching-up economies.