AbstractWhat are the determinants of differences in the rate of innovation amongst companies and countries? This is a yawning gap in our knowledge. Recent research into the technological strategies of the world's leading companies shows that home countries matter, if only because the overwhelming proportion of their technological activities are located there. Standard general recipes about strategy are not very useful, since they neglect the heavily constraining influence of each company's size and principal product market. Companies' internal organisation and criteria for allocating resources matter greatly for their technological strategies, but governments matter less.