Multinational Firms and Innovation: The Role of R&D Collaboration, Markets and Ownership

In this paper, we examine the relationship between R&D collaboration, corporate ownership, market orientation and innovation. In doing so, we classify a Swedish sample of 1,249 multinational enterprises, MNEs, on the basis of their main market, corporate ownership structure and whether their collaborators are foreign-owned or not. We then apply a knowledge production model and estimate the contribution to innovation output from regional and foreign collaboration on innovation with other firms within the group, universities, suppliers and customers, competitors and consultants, controlling for internal R&D investment, human capital, physical capital, trade, financial resources and industry classification. Empirical evidence based on cross-sectional data sheds new light on how innovation is affected by local and global technology spillover.