The Internationalization of Corporate R&D

THE INTERNATIONALIZATION OF CORPORATE R&DIn Sweden there are mainly five data sets that researchers use when they want to studySwedish multinational companies 1 and their R&D investments. Most of the empiricalstudies concerning Swedish multinational companies are based on one of these data sets.The first data set is collected by The Swedish Institute for Growth Policy Studies (ITPS)(ITPS 2005a). ITPS is officially responsible for statistics concerning multinationalcompanies in Sweden. ITPS conducts surveys on R&D every other year. The surveys havebeen made by ITPS since 1995 and cover the 20 largest Swedish-owned multinationalcompanies. 2 The surveys cover the R&D performance (R&D expenditure and R&Dpersonnel 3 ) and collect data on an enterprise group level. The surveys mainly focus ondetermining where the R&D is conducted. Surveyed companies accounted for about 30percent of the total corporate R&D invested in Sweden in 2003. This data can be dividedinto R&D conducted in Sweden or R&D conducted in an affiliate abroad. One limitation ofthis data set is that the companies in the survey population change from year to year, due toownership changes. In other words, if a company that previously was Swedish-ownedbecomes foreign, it is excluded from the survey and another Swedish-owned companyreplaces it.A second data set is collected by Statistics Sweden (SCB). This survey has been conductedevery second year from 1997 to 2003. In 2003 the survey included 1,963 companies, bothSwedish-owned and foreign-owned 4 companies with affiliates in Sweden (SCB 2004). Thesurvey collects performance data about the R&D performed in Sweden. It also collects datathat cover payments made by companies in Sweden for R&D carried out abroad. The dataconcerning R&D funding abroad can be divided into funds sent to business units within theenterprise group, or funds that go outside of the enterprise group.ITPS, together with SCB, also studies the R&D performance by all foreign-ownedcompanies in Sweden (ITPS 2005a and 2004b). This survey is sent to all the foreignownedcompanies and covers the R&D performance by the affiliates in Sweden. In2003 the survey included about 300 foreign-owned companies in Sweden.A fourth data set is collected by the Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IUI)(Hakkala & Zimmermann 2005). The survey is a follow-up of the surveys made by IUIsince the 1970s. It includes all companies with manufacturing facilities in Sweden thathave a minimum of 50 employees, and either control over one or several foreign subsidiariesor exports that account for at least 10 percent of their total sales. In 2003, thesurvey included 105 companies.1 Multinational companies are defined as companies with affiliates abroad, both Swedish- and foreign-owned.2 This data is used in the analysis in Section 4.5.3 R&D personnel is defined as R&D personnel person years.4 Foreign-owned companies are defined as entities in which a foreign majority has a controlling position (asin 50 percent or more of the total shareholders’ vote) in a Swedish company.106