Multinational corporations as channels for international technology transfer: evidence from the South African innovation survey

In this article, we investigate the importance of South African subsidiaries of foreign multinationals as channels to introduce foreign innovations in the South African market. We use firm-level data from the 2008 wave of the South African Innovation Survey, which covers the period 2005-07. We find that subsidiaries of foreign multinationals are significantly more likely to introduce product and process innovations, as well as foreign new products and processes than domestic firms. However, we also find that they are not more likely to introduce foreign innovations developed in collaboration with or mostly by another firm outside their own multinational, or innovations that are new to the South African market.