Abhatoo - Centre Nationale de Documentation

In the context of R&D internationalization, a firm's decision to establish an R&D centre in a certain location creates some externalities affecting other firms and, thus, a random distribution of location choices is unlikely. Expecting that the global distribution of R&D centres fulfils the criteria of a complex network, we apply social network analysis to study the locations of R&D centres and the relationships between the countries owning and hosting them. We analyse the characteristics of the global R&D network and include network indices in an empirical analysis of the R&D internationalisation determinants. We find that a country's position, which does not necessarily coincide with its geographical or cultural proximity to other countries, has a significant impact on the formation and intensity of R&D linkages between countries.