The structures of R&D have evolved towards a bigger articulation between the development of the technological potentialities and exploitation of commercial opportunities. The third generation R&D supplies a more rational frame of action to reconcile several objectives which can turn out contradictory: dedicate enough resources to create new technologies, develop a wallet of industrial and academic co‐operation to accelerate the acquisition of new knowledge. The strategies of high‐tech firms succeed to create a great variety of knowledge. It is necessary to organize the diversity of the internal and external sources to use knowledge fully as a true competitive advantage. We show how the memory must be constituted of the firm to reach that point. From a study on several cases of MNC we characterize the difficulties of the capitalization of the knowledge, and then we present how the firms can take advantage of an active management of knowledge flows.