Global Cities, R&D Location Choice, and Employment Growth: The Influence of Concentrated R&D Ownership and International Knowledge Connectivity

This research aims to investigate the role of global cities as international knowledge hubs and the role of global cities' connectivity in R&D location strategies of multinational companies. The study has three objectives: Firstly, it aims to measure the characteristics of global cities’ connectivity over the past 15 years (2000-2015) measured by city-specific indicators such as technology specialization, the actors involved in the networks, the centrality of these cities in the network, the geographic diversity of network connections, and the technological or scientific strength of network partners. A second objective is to investigate the effect of global cities’ knowledge connectivity on multinational firms’ R&D strategies. Finally, we want to look at the influence of R&D activities in connected cities on the potential performance for multinational companies.