Title:
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Global innovation leadership of German technology corporations : towards a practical guide for the strategic development of worldwide innovation competence
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This thesis is about the project-specific application of intra-company innovation networks
to enable leadership of German technology corporations in the global race for innovation.
It analyses the influence of market- and technology-related complexity on knowledge and
technology transfers between German headquarters and foreign subsidiaries. So far, neither
the public nor the academic domain have applied this perspective when discussing R&D
internationalisation and the role of foreign subsidiaries for innovation competence.
However, both complexity dimensions provide important insights regarding the potentials
and limitations of R&D internationalisation by German technology corporations.
Firstly, a conceptual framework of dynamic intra-company innovation networks is
developed: From an organisational point of view, it combines existing concepts of R&D
internationalisation, exploration and exploitation of knowledge and technology, and
corporate innovation competence. From a strategic point of view, it introduces the
dynamics of innovation along technology lifecycles (i. e. from system to product to process
and service-related innovation) as explanation for market- and technology-related
complexity. Both complexity dimensions are seen as potential contingency factors for the
structure of intra-company innovation networks.
Secondly, the conceptual model is applied to ten case studies in three German corporations
from the automotive, semiconductor and electronics industries. Each case study represents
a different strategic setting - i. e. technology lifecycle position and complexity profile. This
perspective is matched with a description of the respective network approaches. Thus, the
dynamic distribution of roles, responsibilities and innovation competence between the
German headquarters and peripheral entities for various innovation project settings is
explained. 50 additional expert interviews are drawn upon for further detail.
In essence, it is found that the changing foci of innovation along the underlying technology
lifecycles (from system to product to process to service-related innovation) give rise to
different market- and technology-related complexity settings. These influence the
application of centralised, integrated or decentralised innovation networks with different
knowledge and technology transfer modi. A shift of innovation competence from central to
peripheral entities is recognised over time: Competence for radical, architectural and
systemic innovation largely continues to reside in German headquarters while incremental,
component- and service-oriented innovation is becoming a domain of foreign subsidiaries.
Additionally, the continued growth of the emerging economies gives rise to increasing
innovation capability in the periphery. It nurtures stronger roles of subsidiaries from these
high-growth markets for corporate innovation in the future.
In summary, single corporations turn to simultaneously orchestrating multiple innovation
networks as the diffusion of technology quickens and new peripheral centres of innovation
competence evolve. Herein, actively recognising where the respectively needed innovation
competences are located and consciously managing international knowledge and
technology transfers within firms can be expected to become a key challenge to maintain
the `Global Innovation Leadership' claim of German TNCs in the future.
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