Introduction

In this chapter we address a number of issues pertinent to the internationalisation of the economy, related corporate strategies and in particular the extent to which (international) strategic technology alliances are applied by companies from Europe, Japan and the USA. In order to achieve a better understanding of the international setting of strategic technology alliances we will first broaden the picture of our analysis before we come to the main question of our present contribution, i.e., to what extent European companies differ from their major competitors in their strategic technology partnering behaviour as a major force in corporate internationalisation strategies. In that context we will understand strategic technology partnerships as those inter-firm agreements aimed at the long-term perspective of the product-market position of at least one partner through a joint effort of which common innovative activities are at least part of the agreement.

In the next section we will consider the general background for the issue of internationalisation through a brief discussion of key aspects of phenomena such as the international catching-up strategies of Europe and Japan after the Second World War through foreign direct investment, the changes in international trade, the transformations in the international market structure and the internationalisation of technology flows. Section 3 presents some descriptive information on general trends in strategic technology alliances during the eighties and the sectoral breakdown of these agreements and in section 4 we will analyse trends in the internationalisation of strategic technology partnering.