POLARISATION ET INTERNATIONALISATION DES ACTIVITES D'INNOVATION: INCIDENCES SUR LA SPECIALISATION TECHNOLOGIQUE DES NATIONS

At the level of both national and local territories, the cumulative processes of the technological specialization of countries accompany the tendency towards a spatial polarization of innovative activities. Until the eighties, the technological specialization of regions was not thwarted by the process of globalization, since firms integrated their innovative activities in their home country. However, since the nineties, the establishment of R&D activities abroad partly corresponds to consideration concerning the access to competences. The aim of this paper is to investigate whether the globalization of technology will have destabilizing effects on the technological specialization profiles of countries. Our contention is that it will not, as countries are the latter being strongly path-dependent since innovation and production systems remain deeply rooted in territories. In this perspective, the process of globalization will rather deepen the cognitive dimension of the international division of labor.