The Internationalization of Corporate R&D

THE INTERNATIONALIZATION OF CORPORATE R&DNon-OECD countries only employed about 3 percent of these companies’ total R&Dpersonnel in 2003. This share increased between 1997 and 2003 but is still very small 17 .Figure 4-9 Distribution of R&D personnel between Sweden, high-income OECD and non-OECD, 1997–2003.100%90%80%70%60%50%40%30%20%10%0%1997 1999 2001 2003Sw eden High income OECD, excl. Sw eden Non-OECDNote: The 20 largest Swedish-controlled multinational companies.Source: ITPS 2005a and calculations performed for this study.Figure 4-10 shows the total employment distribution among the regions used in Figure4-9. About 75 percent of the total employment occurred abroad in 2003. This is muchhigher than the percentage of R&D personnel abroad. In 2003, the high-income OECDregion employed about 55 percent of the Swedish multinational companies’ personneland non-OECD countries employed about 20 percent.17 These figures do not include outsourced R&D activities. There could be a difference in the level ofoutsourced R&D activities between high-income OECD and non-OECD countries that may result inunderestimating the share of R&D activities in non-OECD countries.120