Particular aspects of internationalization

Abstract

One reason for the internationalization of the inventive phases of innovation processes could be that country-specific success factors exist. If relatively more efficient inventors would live in one nation and relatively less efficient ones in another, we should expect invention activities to be concentrated in the relatively more efficient places. Better education is thought to provide such differences in efficiency. Thus, education appears to be one of the success factors of innovation. However, we cannot assume that this factor is of importance in some nations and of no importance in some others. Rather, the level of a universally important factor is different. This view is supported in the extensive study on “Culture and Technical Innovation”, where it is said that: “there is no evidence of any culturally different patterns of generating basic innovations” (Albach, 1993, p. 61) and “...we maintain that the determinants of success of technical innovation are the same all over the world. They are. . . competence, leeway, integration, commitment, and knowledge” (Albach, 1993, p. 78). These variables are then studied at the level of: the individual, the group, the firm and its environment as characterized by users, the organization of an economy, trade unions, education and the government.