Title: The organisational decomposition of innovation and global distribution of innovative activities: insights and research agenda

Authors: Hubert Schmitz, Simone Strambach

Addresses: Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton, BN1 9RE, UK. ' Department of Geography, University of Marburg, 35032 Marburg/Lahn, Germany

Abstract: The starting point for this paper is a fundamental change currently occurring in the way innovation is organised in developed countries: it tended to be centralised at or near headquarters, but is now much more decentralised within the company. Equally if not more significant, innovation activities that used to be carried out in-house by innovating firms themselves are carried out by independent suppliers of knowledge intensive business services or are transferred to key suppliers. The question driving this paper is how this |organisational decomposition of the innovation process| changes the global distribution of innovation of activities. Does it contribute to their global dispersal to the developing world or does it strengthen the existing concentration? Since this is uncharted territory, the paper seeks guidance from theory and draws out the insights which can be gained from the innovation systems and Global Value Chain (GVC) perspectives. This then leads to the identification of the new questions which future empirical research needs to address.

Keywords: outsourcing; global distribution; knowledge intensive business services; innovation systems; global value chain; GVC; organisational decomposition; developed countries; independent suppliers.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTLID.2009.026816

International Journal of Technological Learning, Innovation and Development, 2009 Vol.2 No.4, pp.231 - 249

Published online: 26 Jun 2009 *

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