The Impact of Factors on Reverse Technology Flow of Multinational R&D Centers: A Review of Literatures

Abstract

With continuous emergence of multinational R&D centers, the influencing factors on reverse technology flow performance are becoming research focus. This article redefines the concept of reverse technology flow, and then does a literature review on influencing factors on both initial and final phase of reverse technology flow. It finds out characteristics of multinational R&D centers, relevant environment of home countries and host countries, which impact either the initial phase or the final phase, have been more studied, while lacking research on the whole process of reverse technology flow. Is there any factor impact both the initial phase and the final phase? The question would be necessarily discussed more in future research. On the other hand, with more and more multinational R&D centres from developing countries being built, reverse technology flow of multinational R&D centres of developing countries needs further studied.