BRIE’s first major undertaking was an effort to articulate America’s shifting position in the global economy in the 1980s and the way in which the particular dynamics of other countries’ political economies generated innovation that affected the possibilities of American companies and workers. This put BRIE in the center of the domestic debate about how to develop skilled workers and the then-evolving international struggle over new trade rules and the place of Japan in the global trading system. Manufacturing Matters argued that a post-industrial vision blinded America to the profound changes in the economy, the new international division of labor, and the new technical division of labor that extended the production process outside the confines of the traditional manufacturing firm. Widely praised by the business press, Manufacturing Matters was named one of the ten best books of the year by Business Week.

In the mid 1990s, as Europe enlarged with the end of the Cold War, one concern driving politics in Western Europe was a fear of unemployment driven by an influx of Eastern European workers and products. Having followed and articulated the emerging structure of production globally, and the nature of the Asian production system, BRIE research clarified how cross-national production networks first evident in Asia would influence the politics of Western Europe. The BRIE publication Enlarging Europe demonstrated how European multinationals are forming international production networks that enhance their positions in global markets

BRIE's current research suggest that profoundly new approaches to production and organization are combining with the rapid, pervasive spread of information technologies to create radically new forms of international competition. BRIE research looks at how the very logic of value creation and the dynamics and location of innovation are changing in a digital era. An array of diverse issues from intellectual property and privacy through to competition policy, the shifting nature of product and services, and the management of information and knowledge, must be taken together. Through publications such as Tools for Thought and Tracking a Transformation, BRIE research influences the way technology is defined and thought of today.