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Whereas both small and large companies operate 100% in the UK it is interesting how of course due to the amount of revenue that the larger companies have they have a higher spread globally. Within the respondents of large companies, USA, France, Other Western European Countries, China and Australasia were populated over 50% by the large companies and followed by Japan, India, and Scandinavia all above 40%. Within France and Other European Countries the reason for operating in those regions may be due to the Regional Funding Assistance that is located within Europe. As for China and India, India has focused their efforts on high technology growth as a means of fuelling economic development, rather than relying only on streams of foreign aid or the more traditional approach to development in “stages of economic growth” typically advocated for developing economies (Parker 2008) as they seek to modernize through heavy investment in industrialization.

When looking at the location of where companies operate on their size [link] , the large companies have a higher percentage of wider global spread than the small companies. Large companies being more mature have a tendency in laying out extensive funds for infrastructure look for more cost savings in working in locations where labour cost is low, possibly the reason for the high proportion of the large companies with employees of over 100 employees 44%; and 49% of the large companies identified by having annual revenue of over £10m operating in Other Asia.

Interesting was to find that even with the size of the companies being under 100 people there was a global spread [link] ; they appreciate the opportunities that the wider world can offer. Quinstas et al. 1997 and Davenport 2005 argues Knowledge-acquisition is one part of knowledge management which, in turn, has been defined as “the process of critically managing knowledge to meet existing needs, to identify and exploit existing and acquired knowledge assets and to develop new opportunities”. Geographic proximity to the knowledge sources with which the organization is collaborating is generally assumed to assist knowledge-acquisition. Much of the advantage of such collaboration is thought to come from efficiencies in collective learning (Belussi 1999, Davenport 2005), particularly for innovative firms. Whether understood as generating economic externalities or spillovers of R&D (Krugman, 1991; Audretsch and Feldman, 1994; Feldman, 1994) or facilitating inter-organisational transmission of tacit knowledge via social capital (Powell et al., 1996), geographic proximity is thought to be important for innovative activity. “Since knowledge is generated and transmitted more efficiently via local proximity, economic activity based on new knowledge has a high propensity to cluster within a geographic region”(Audretsch, 1998). Davenport 2005 states that, “Any exploration of geographic proximity leads directly to studies of successful knowledge sharing clusters”.

“Today’s economic map of the world is dominated by what are called clusters” Michael Porter, 1998