Global Innovation in Emerging Economies

In recent decades, there have been significant changes in the way corporate innovation is performed. They include changes in the innovation process, flexibility to outsource innovation activities, and most importantly, the location of innovation. There are mainly two new trends: First, location of globally strategic R&D by the multinational corporations (MNCs) in some developing countries; second, more recently, some companies from the emerging economies have also started performing R&D to develop products and services for global markets. These trends are occurring in a dynamic business environment that consists of mutually reinforcing economic and technological changes. These trends have managerial implications for companies and policy implications for the emerging economies where such R&D is performed, as well as for the industrialized home countries of the companies. Further, innovative products and services resulting from R&D activities in emerging economies seem to better address the needs of consumers at the bottom-of-the-pyramid in other developing countries.Global Research and Development in Emerging Economies examines the dynamics of the globalization processes and the emergence of new locations for innovation and its implications. Exploring twenty in-depth case studies of MNCs, local companies, and research institutes/universities based in Brazil, China, India, and South Africa (the so-called BRICS Group), Prasada Reddy develops a conceptual framework of the evolution of globalization of corporate R&D. This unique books addresses many issues including the context for location of global R&D in emerging economies by MNCs and the driving forces behind this trend, performance of global R&D by companies from emerging economies, and national and corporate implications of these new trends for innovation systems.