Management of Technology and Innovation in Japan

304 G. Reger
North American companies are strongly motivated by adapting products to local
requirements, supporting non-domestic manufacturing capability and to get access
to skilled researchers.
Roles of R&D Facilities Abroad and Coordination Mechanisms
Those companies who perform R&D in their labs abroad were asked about the
function and organization of these activities. The most striking result is that the
concept of 'centers of excellence' had a breakthrough in recent years. Out of four
possible characteristics of foreign laboratories, almost one third of the sample labeled
their foreign laboratories as 'centers of excellence'. However, European
companies much more tend to set up a centre of excellence with worldwide responsibility
(43.6%) than North American (31.5%) and especially Japanese companies
(21.4%) do (see Fig. 11). In contrast, 34.5% of the North American and
24.5% of the Japanese companies mentioned that their R&D units perform the
same activities as domestic R&D facilities, but adapted to the local market.
100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
Europe Japan N-America
percentage of companies
a: They perform the same activities as domestic R&D facilities but adapted to local market,
b: They represent worldwide centers of excellence for a particular technology, discipline,
etc., c: They focus only on basic and/or applied research, d: They focus only on regional
technical support activities
Fig. 11. Most important functions of R&D facilities located abroad
As for the organization and independence of R&D facilities abroad, the analysis
shows a resemblance for all regions. On a scale between 1 ('not very independent')
to 5 ('totally independent'), the decisions about the content of R&D is ranked
with a mean of 2.4, whereas the independence to internally organize the work has
a mean of 3.1. It is interesting to note that for both the content and work organization
the Japanese companies show the lowest value of independence from their
foreign laboratories: for content the mean is only at 2.0 and for work organization
2.8. This shows that content is still more controlled by the headquarters than the
mechanisms used to generate it. If foreign laboratories do not serve as centers of
d
c
b
a