Fuentes de colaboración para la creación de conocimiento en las subsidiarias españolas de multinacionales extranjeras

Abstract

The creation of business knowledge leads to the generation of innovation and development capabilities in various functional areas; such knowledge creation requires an interaction between individuals and organizations, and multinational firms offer opportunities for the analysis of cooperation among different units. Thus, the aim of this paper is to analyse the main sources of cooperation used by subsidiaries of a multinational enterprise for the creation of knowledge in the functional areas most related to technological knowledge: R&D, production and marketing. For such purpose, after a review of the literature three working hypotheses are formulated, which are contrasted through multivariate analysis on a population of 80 Spanish subsidiaries. The results show that the cooperation relationships developed between the subsidiary and its internal network (i.e. its internal environment and corporate socialization) exert a significant, positive influence upon knowledge creation, whereas its external network has a non-significant influence.