A strategic framework for attracting R&D center of foreign companies and its application in the IT industry

As of April 2006, Korea had successfully invited twelve global IT R&D centers to help implement the u-IT839 strategy of Ministry of Information and Communication, but there have also been some doubts about their research and collaboration performance in Korea. Although it is too early to evaluate the outcomes of inviting global IT R&D centers only after two years or less of their working, the Korean government is being advised to employ a more customized invitation strategy. In this paper, an analytic framework for the attraction of global R&D centers is developed based on the attractiveness-competitiveness matrix, and is applied empirically to the IT industry. Fourteen major IT technology categories and their sub-technological fields are classified into four strategic groups (priority group, wish group, consideration group, and hold group) along the framework via expert surveys and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique. This study is expected to help the government to implement the ‘select and concentrate’ strategy in inviting global R&D centers and creating synergies among them by providing basic data on global R&D partnership priorities.