Abstract: Contrary to the traditional pattern in which innovations are first initiated in advanced countries and then diffused to developing ones, reverse innovation is the kind of innovation first developed or adopted in emerging markets and then accepted by advanced markets, reflecting the new tendency of change of emerging market status, distribution of global R&D resources and cross-border transferring of innovations. Based on the summary of the evolutionary process of innovation globalization, the paper discriminates the reverse innovation from the other innovation concepts which are specifically created for emerging market and then describes the different realization paths of the innovation. Finally, after developing the comprehensive theoretical framework in the research field, some research directions are suggested for future reference.

Key words: reverse innovation, globalization, emerging market, innovation path