Global Innovation Networks: what are they and where can we find them? (Conceptual and Empirical issues)

The rapid move of China and India from low-cost producers to innovators has triggered an increasing interest in the globalization of innovation activities and more specifically, on the surge of global innovation networks (GINs). However, hitherto most of the literature is either theoretical or based on a handful of cases. We do not know what are the different forms of GINs in which firms participate, both in terms of the various degrees of globalness, innovativeness and neworkedness as well as their main characteristics. In this paper, we propose a taxonomy of global innovation networks that takes into account these different dimensions. This paper provides empirical evidence about the characteristics of the different variants of global innovation networks, observed in seven European countries as well as Brazil, China, India and South Africa. It relies on firm-level data collected through a survey in 2010 and provides for the first time a theoretical and empirical overview of the different forms of global innovation networks.