eThesis - School of Business electronic theses

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Russia inherited a large research and development (R&D) sector from Soviet times, and has retained a substantial R&D sector today, compared with other emerging economies. However, Russia is failing behind in all indicators measuring innovative output in comparison with most developed countries. According to Martti Vallila, Finland has what Russia needs and Russia has what Finland needs. There are researchers and innovators in Russia. Finland has one of the leading innovation systems in the world to commercialize Russian sourced innovation. Therefore, research problem of the thesis is to find the strategy that Russian companies could use in order to commercialize their innovations in Finland and if this strategy depends on some factors. To acquaintance the reader to the wider theoretical context of the study, the concepts of commercialization and internationalization as a strategy by providing theoretical background to the issue. The empirical part of this thesis has been conducted with qualitative methods, a qualitative multiple case study. The research of the study consists of two parts. The first part was conducted by interviews with the representative from Tekes and representative of the project "Finnish-Russian Innovation Cooperation - Commercialization of Russian Innovations". The second part was also conducted by interviews, but with the representatives of the companies, who succeeded to commercialize their innovations in Finland. The main findings of the empirical part are next. The reason why Russian companies need to commercialize their innovations in Finland was found out, it is due to the obstacles in Russian innovation system, Finnish innovation system looks more attractive to Russian companies. Regarding to the steps of the commercialization process, there are no clear steps, but the following ones were suggested by the author: establish a joint venture, hire a local CEO or a book-keeper, prepare an investment plan, and create projects inside joint venture. Regarding the main challenges for Russian companies in Finland are: lack of human resources, lack of money (or investments), difference in taxation systems. Cooperation commercialization strategy seems to be the most suitable for Russian companies that would like to commercialize their innovations in Finland. Finally, the research identified that the choice of internationalization strategy effects the choice of commercialization strategy.