Many Taiwanese multinational corporation (MNC) increase the proportion of their foreign direct investment in R&D activities year by year. The companies investing in the advanced nations operate R&D activities in the local market obviously. Through this thesis, we desire to know the status of overseas R&D sites in these cases and their motives. Futhermore, we also want to discuss how they build up and operate these R&D sites. Due to much more innovative knowledge resources outside the parent country, Taiwanese companies need to globalize their R&D sites to acquire the R&D results; in addition, establish the network of overseas R&D sites makes MNCs to promote their products in the global market smoothly. However, MNCs have to disperse their corporate resources in diffirent locations, and give each site diffirent roles and tasks. Other important issues among these MNCs are how to manage these dispersed R&D sites to achieve the efficiency and the flexibility and what the strategies they consider. Overseas R&D activity of Taiwanese MNCs is still evolving, and Taiwanese companies have their particular background. In order to find out the causes of this situation, we used the case study approach. We selected the cases which had the complete building process of overseas R&D activities, and interviewed the top managers who had the experiences in the process to gather the materials. Besides, other second-hand materials are also providing us more information to comprehend our sample cases. We found that Taiwanese MNCs had diffirent motives in each stage. They need to respond to local market, and provide the commercial products rapidly. In addition, local technology and human resource are also the important wealth to strengthen headquarters¡¦ R&D capabilities. Under the consideration of speed, cost and competition, MNCs integrated the R&D resources of parent and host countries aggressively, and they had to think how to match the corporate strategy. Further, they tried to manage organizational information flows and coordinate these R&D activities. Moreover, using several kinds of communication patterns helps headquarters to understand and control overseas R&D activities, and makes R&D knowledge and experiences circulate inside the organization to stimulate organizational innovative capacity.

隨著經貿全球化與自由化，各項商業活動漸無國界概念，跨國企業遊走各國，善用全球生產要素，但資源有限，企業永續經營與成長，不能只靠有限的土地、勞動力與資本等傳統生產要素，創新研發與知識累積能力成為比傳統生產要素更重要的關鍵，研發國際化更是全球經貿發展不可逆的趨勢。 本研究以2007年臺灣1,770家製造業廠商為對象，運用Probit及Tobit二種模型，分別探討在不同技術來源下，海外投資廠商決定投入海外研發以及投入資源多寡的決定因素。研究結果發現，「廠商規模」、「行業別」、「進入模式」、「國際化深度」、「投資地區」、「市場考量」以及「母國提供技術」為臺灣對外投資廠商決定投入海外研發與否之重要影響因素。一旦決定投入海外研發後，研發資源投入多寡的決定因素則有所變化，廠商規模大小與投資行業、獨資或合夥、市場夠不夠大等重要性降低成不顯著，相對的盈利與否影響性提升，但卻是負向影響關係。同時，本研究參考社會心理學領域的「調節變數」概念，探討「技術來源」是否具有調節效果，實證結果也證實不同的技術來源，確實會影響解釋變數與被解釋變數（海外研發配置）之間的因果關係，具備調節效果，這也表示技術來源對於海外研發配置確實扮演重要的關鍵角色。 / Along with globalization and liberalization, the trade goes around the world borderlessly. In order to take advantage of relatively cheap land and labor, multinational corporations extend business worldwide. However, due to the limitation of natural endowments and human resource, Innovation becomes the key factor, which plays a more-important-than-ever role for business sustainable development. This paper examines the determinants of overseas R&D of Taiwanese multinationals; including whether to invest in R&D and how to allocate. Our empirical results indicate that the firm size, IT industry, entry mode, internationalization level, investment location, market motivations and technology acquisition are the determinants of overseas R&D investment. Furthermore, whether above determinants remain significant when Dependent Variable turns to be overseas R&D allocation? The empirical results suggest that firm size, industry category, entry mode and market motivations are no more significant. Instead, profitability becomes significant with negative affect. Besides, we also found the strong effect of technology acquisition on overseas R&D investment and allocation. Different technology source acquired does play a moderating role in the relationship between independent variables and overseas R&D.