Abstract

Corporate R&D, previously concentrated in the home country, has since the 1980s been part of an escalating process of internationalization. Furthermore, inward and outward internationalization, once a developed country-centric phenomenon, is increasingly involving catch-up and emerging countries, Given the above-mentioned backdrop, this paper sets out to examine the factors underlying R&D intensity of the overseas subsidiaries of Taiwan-based firms, with a specific focus on their cross-border R&D linkages and differences in R&D strategies across host countries. In essence, the paper adopts the overseas subsidiary as a unit of analysis and serves to bridge missing links in the literature on R&D internationalization by examining the relationships between R&D investment, R&D strategy and R&D linkages.