The global dispersion of innovative activities: The case of Finnish multinationals

The internationalisation of R&D of multinational firms is an important ingredient in the ongoing trend towards globalisation. Previous research on Finnish multinationals has mainly relied on R&D expenditure data. In this paper we provide new insights into how the internationalisation of R&D of these Finnish multinationals is also reflected in their innovative output as measured by patenting. The results indicate that inventor teams have grown in size over time, especially through the entry of US, German, Swedish and UK inventors. Contrary to what the extant literature predicts, the share of patents with foreign inventors is lower for Finnish multinationals when com-pared with multinationals from other industrialised countries. However, foreign patents of Finnish multinationals score higher in terms of originality and point to the domina-tion of home-base-augmenting R&D strategies over home-base-exploiting ones. – internationalisation ; Finnish multinationals ; inventors ; patenting