Commercialization of Innovation within the MNE: A Focus on Processes

Northeastern University, Boston MA

Investigators

Abstract

The purpose of this project is to identify the organizational processes that will permit multinational organizations to more successfully transfer innovations from R&D laboratories to subsidiaries on other continents. In partnership with the Institute for Global Innovation Management at Northeastern University and Charles River Laboratories, a global supplier to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, the research will analyze cases of global innovation in which the organization attempted to transfer R&D to subsidiaries in France and Japan. The analysis focuses on the impact of organizational change interventions designed to facilitate innovation transfers. This research has important potential for better understanding transfer of innovations and thus a bearing on outsourcing, multinational R&D, and other forms of organizational decentralization and organizing activities.