The aim of this paper is to analyse the performance characteristics of large firms that are at the forefront of globalization of their knowledge creating activities. This we do by making a comparison with firms that are much more concentrated in terms of their knowledge creation. Our analysis is based on around 500 of the world’s largest technologically active companies, with their headquarters in the EU, Japan and the US. These companies account for a large proportion of both corporate R&D spending worldwide and total EPO patenting. In particular we address the following sets of questions: * Are globalized firms larger than those that are non-globalized? x Do globalized firms have higher volumes of innovative activity than nonglobalized firms?. * Do globalized firms have higher innovation intensity than non-globalized firms?. * Do globalized have a higher level of economic performance than nonglobalized firms?. The results for the sample as a whole show that firms that are geographically dispersed in their technology creation are, on average, considerably larger, have a higher volume of innovative activities, and have superior economic performance. However in terms of innovation intensity the difference between the two sets of firms is negligible, i.e. they both devote very similar proportions of their total resources to innovation. The analysis also shows that there are considerable differences across sectors in the degree to which these results hold. In terms of size, while firms from most sectors conform to the aggregate pattern, the more globalized companies in the Aerospace industry are, on average, smaller than the non-globalized firms. With …