Corporate R&D, one of the most shielded and centralised activities in the value chain, has recently experienced rapid internationalisation. However, academic writing has primarily concentrated on investments within ‘core', i.e. triad, countries. The question to what extent firms invest in R&D in non-triad economies remains fairly uncharted territory. This paper provides insights regarding the type as well as the management of non-triad R&D laboratories by building on survey data from 49 leading German MNCs. We shed light on the motivations and pace of R&D investments and reveal that the mechanisms used in ‘peripheral' countries considerably differ from ‘core' country laboratories.