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International Management - Rodchenko VV

3.1. The model of the innovation process in the countries of Western Europe

In Western Europe, dominated by the model of the innovation process, entitled "International cooperation inter-company - a method of increasing the efficiency of R & D", which is different from the models of "Brave venture entrepreneurship" and the US "New forms of human interaction in the innovation process" of Japan. In a sense, forms of cooperation between scientific and technological ideas in Europe are intermediate between the American and Japanese practice situation, although some researchers have these processes in recent years in Europe there is a trend more "japanization" forms of cooperation between science and industry.

Such cooperation is aimed at long-term business objectives; it is linked to the global spread of new technologies and is in line with the objective process of internationalization of economic life.

Experts note the growing interest of the private sector companies to new forms of cooperation due to the complex and costly research and development, reducing the duration of high-tech goods cycles need for an integrated use of different technologies to solve business problems of a global nature. In these circumstances, it is the cooperation of specialized companies one or more branches to separate the costs and reduce the risk to a successful fight against competitors in foreign markets is very effective.

Until the early 80-ies of XX century. global inter-company co-operation was limited to areas such as exchange of information, joint production or marketing of products. Joint R & D was considered as a secondary activity. In the next 10 years as the transformation of scientific and technological alliances in a new element of the global economy and corporate market strategy, this practice has changed.

On the specifics of the organization of the innovation process in Western Europe, has influenced a number of circumstances.

First of all, before the large European firms have a relatively narrow national market, while R & D investments require large scale of production for cost-effective implementation of their results, as well as the broader markets. For this reason, innovation processes in Europe in the early 80s began to come up against limiting the scope of national markets: the small scale implementation of the cost of national production has grown consistently and competitiveness fell. Under these conditions, the natural way to improve production efficiency and competitiveness of the product has become the international cooperation of European companies, will expand the scope of the market through integration. Then came the joint international projects companies in key areas of scientific and technical progress.

Another factor was the strong competitive pressures of American and Japanese firms. The lag in R & D at the end of the 70s gave rise to the threat of loss of competitive position in its own market. Since the preservation of competitiveness only provides transition to new types of technologies have technical and financial difficulties, which led to the unification of capital and stimulate the integration of companies.

With the support of the state bodies of various countries have been established European collaborative projects: European strategic program for the use of information technology (Esprit), the European Research Coordinating Agency (Eureka) and a number of private projects, for example, "Phillips-Siemens Mega Project" together with Danish and West German research institutions for the development of a new generation of superchipov.

Distinguishing features country the innovation process, it should be noted that if there is reason to believe the predominant contribution of small business in the United States and Japan in the modern trends of STP, for the European media pioneer developments are mainly large and major corporations. Since the beginning of the 80's R & D cost increase of more than half of the 40 largest Western European industrial corporations was higher than the increase in their cost of capital assets. Even during the crisis of 1980-1982., When the profit rate declined, the budget for research and development costs increased. These corporations are considered R & D spending as a means of overcoming the crisis.

When the researchers conclude the innovation process on trends "japanization" in Europe, we have in mind first and foremost ways of interacting head manufacturers with suppliers, which in Japan is more restrictive in terms of quality of delivered products and retooling of production than in Western European countries. For example, Japanese television factory "Matsushita" in the UK was forced to return 30% of British companies set his component parts because of their poor quality, while the rate of return for the Japanese suppliers - less than 1%. According to Japanese experts, analyze the situation, it takes 10 years to find a way to make British companies to produce products of the desired quality.

This example shows how much the implementation of innovations in production depends on the distribution to the associated production. Many large European companies associated with a large number of suppliers, take special projects that develop forms of communication with suppliers, types of technical and organizational assistance to them, as well as the methods of cooperation between a number of suppliers with a common purpose to adapt their production to the parent company level.

Like the Japanese, European firms also tend to pass most of the suppliers of the production cycle, leaving in their final stages. This enhanced monitoring of subcontracts. At the same time, the parent firm focuses initial stage - the creation of new models and design. In other words, the head firm hold in their hands the beginning and end of the whole process, which allows to control its intermediate stage. But it is in the initial and final stages primarily used latest technology: automatic design - in the beginning, flexible manufacturing systems - in the final stage. Thus, the most important conditions and the results of the innovation process focused primarily in major corporations. Given that large firms contribute to the improvement of production from their suppliers and encourage him a key position in the innovation stream is concentrated all have industry leaders.

One of the varieties of inter-firm cooperation in the sphere of international relations in recent years, is the pursuit of a joint decision of the most important financial, technical, production and other issues. The tendency to expand the practice of collective policy of large companies has become typical for pioneer industries NTP. Members agreements complementary roles in the process of research and commercialization. Such agreements are called strategic or scientific and technical alliances (NTA).

Scientific and technical alliance called the sustainable organization of member firms of different sizes with each other or with universities, government laboratories, based on co-financing R & D agreements, the development or improvement of products. If the alliance partners - from different countries, it becomes international. There are several types of NTA: joint scientific-technical and industrial activity, the organization of consortia and joint ventures, and others.

On average, from about 1900 international agreement, US companies are involved in 85%, Western Europe - 65 and Japanese - 40%. The most intense US relationship - Western Europe.

Creating a new technology is strict national boundaries, international NTA reduce the impact of purely country factors, such as limited resources or government regulation rigidity. Each member of the alliance contributes to the existing form of his intellectual and material resources, and after the results according to specific arrangements receives its share of the intellectual property.

The desire for education NTA is particularly clearly pronounced in small and medium-sized companies which, without having great financial and technical capabilities, qualified personnel, without access to complex expensive equipment, technological conclude agreements between themselves or with larger firms.

Comparison of the number of agreements of the national and international levels in three areas of advanced technologies (information technology, biotechnology, production of new materials), made by companies in Western Europe, Japan and the United States (Table. 3.1), leads to the conclusion that companies from these regions work together more often with foreign partners.

Table 3.1

The share of inter-firm R & D agreements at the national and international levels%

Although the scope of activities compared to the NTA national corporations remained modest (at least according to the statistics do not always reflect the new implementation of R & D), there is ample evidence of their rapid growth.
Of all the international industry alliances, about half US and half - European.

In the Netherlands, about 15% of the scientific and technical activities manufacturing companies accounted for NTA, the amount of which in some areas is dependent on the performance of export share in their products.

In France, a program of international scientific co-operation on EU lines provide partial funding for research and development in companies, which accounted for about 60% of national R & D.

These average figures do not show the value of certain of the largest alliances that impact on the state of scientific and technical developments in a number of key industries. So, in 1992, three well-known corporations - "IBM", "Siemens" and "Toshiba" - formed an alliance, investing $ 1 billion. superchipa for the development of computer memory. The results of this development may globally affect the technical level of the industry.

The internationalization of R & D and development of new technologies are generally considered by experts as a positive trend, as a result of the benefit all the participants. Potential winnings - new opportunities for innovation, rapid and widespread dissemination of advanced technology and the best manufacturing practices, more rational allocation of human and financial resources. The implementation of these advantages create a favorable investment climate, promoting the growth of productivity and overall economic development.