Managing R&D overseas: Japanese companies in the UK

Why do so few Japanese corporations carry out so little R&D overseas? This paper argues that Japanese companies are latecomers to international manufacturing and R&D operations and that, in the process, they are re-examining the institutional arrangements which they used to build their successful penetration of international markets. Drawing on the literature on ‘national systems of innovation', a survey of R&D staff in Britain and Japan and surveys and case studies of Japanese R&D in the UK, the paper examines the problems involved in establishing and staffing overseas R&D establishments, distinguishing between R&D units associated with manufacturing and ‘stand alone’ R&D units and examining the ways in which Japanese companies are adapting patterns of human resource management in their UK R&D units.