Research on the geography of innovation has long focused on regions as the units in which capabilities are deemed to reside, as place-based (mostly tacit) knowledge is shared among economic agents embedded in particular locations (Storper and Venables, 2004). However, a growing body of research has broadened this perspective. Crescenzi et al. (2016) show that other non-geographical proximities (and, in particular, organizational proximity) are necessary for knowledge sharing and successful innovative collaborations. Zhang and Rigby (2021) suggest that new ideas are more likely to flow within firm boundaries across regions than they are to flow between separate firms within the same region. If most geographical knowledge flows occur within companies, the influence of corporate organization on knowledge mobility demands more attention (Michailova and Mustaffa 2012) for understanding the global geography of innovation.

Multinational enterprises (MNEs) organize their activities across countries and regions following a Global Value Chain (GVC) logic: high value added tasks and functions (such as R&D and design activities) are located in regions with stronger local innovative capabilities and supportive systems of innovation conditions (Crescenzi et al. 2014). In this context, firms from emerging markets conduct their most impactful R&D projects abroad and leverage the fragmentation between development at home and research in state-of-the-art foreign knowledge centres to access innovation capabilities while profiting from labor cost advantages at home (Schaefer, 2020; Schaefer & Liefner 2017).

Conversely, the complex location strategies of MNE R&D activities have profound implications for the innovation trajectory of their home and host regions acting as catalysts for regional innovation across the globe (Crescenzi et al. 2022). In light of these debates more work is required to unpack firm- and place-based perspectives on knowledge mobility in order to understand the intertwined economic dynamics of firms and regions.