The Role of the Multinational Companies

This chapter analyzes the role of MNCs in the development of the software industry in India, Ireland, and Israel. It shows that the evolution of software activities and the role of MNCs varied considerably across these three countries in terms of the timing of entry and the type of activities conducted by MNCs. Ireland MNCs provided the domestic industry with market access and trained managers. In Israel and India, MNCs provided finance, marketing, and managerial capabilities to domestic firms, but only after a regional software cluster had already developed. The analysis shows that people mobility and spin-offs appear to be significant, especially in Ireland. However, there was very limited evidence of MNCs technology externalities measured by patent citations