Using firm-level survey data from Barcelona, Stockholm, and Vienna in Europe, and Singapore, Penang (Malaysia), and Bangkok in Southeast Asia, we enquire into the different R&D and innovation behaviour of multinational and local companies in these metropolitan regions. Scrutinizing a set of input, throughput, and output indicators as well as information on cooperation characteristics, we try to evaluate (a) if the spatial pattern of more (intense) innovation activity in Europe when compared with Southeast Asia is still valid; and (b) if there are reasons to believe that R&D units of multinational corporations in Europe are concerned mainly with the enhancement of the knowledge base and the development of future competitiveness by tapping into localized knowledge and using the particular host regions' innovation systems, whereas multinational corporations in Southeast Asia use R&D to support existing production facilities in order to exploit an existing competitive advantage. We are able to show that there is still a major gap in innovation performance between Southeast Asia and Europe and that there are indeed indications that R&D units in Europe are orientated more towards the augmentation of the company's knowledge base.
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