Abstract: When the U.S. financial crisis hitting heavily the global economy, the global operation and development of multinational companies are also deeply affected. However, the profits of multinational companies gained in the Chinese markets are not falling, instead, are increasing. The strategic position kept by their R&D institutions in China is rising, and the role evolution process is speeding up. In order to explore the evolution path and the driving mechanism of the role of multinational R&D institutions in China, this paper applies the enterprise resource-based theory and the multinational company technological innovation globalization and regional innovation network theory to analyze the role evolution course from the perspective of evolutionary economics, so as to systematically clarify the internal mechanism of role evolution of the multinational company R&D institutions in China, thus providing a theoretical reference for multinational companies to maintain a competitive advantage in the Chinese market.

Key words: evolutionary economics; R&D institutions; multinational companies