The evolution of strategic asset-seeking acquisitions by emerging market multinationals

We study the extent to which emerging market multinational enterprises (EMNEs) engage in strategic asset-seeking acquisitions in advanced countries in relation to the strength of their home- and host-country national innovation system (NIS). We suggest that early acquisitions by EMNEs were used to compensate for the EMNEs relatively weak home NIS, and targeted weaker host NIS to limit the cognitive gap EMNEs would need to address. Instead, more recent acquisitions by EMNEs are supported by a stronger home NIS, and target firms in stronger host NIS. We also propose that acquisitions by high-tech (versus non-high-tech) EMNEs need a stronger home NIS due to the technological complexity of the industry, and are limited when the complexity of a stronger host NIS adds to the industry context. We find support for most of our arguments on 179 acquisitions in the Triad by Brazilian, Russian, Indian and Chinese multinationals.     

Foreign direct investment,technological advancement,and absorptive capacity: A network analysis

Technological advancement is an important instrument for economic and technological development, but most countries receive the benefits of innovation and new technologies through technology transfer. Previous studies typically consider direct linkages in order to understand technological advancement without paying much attention to indirect linkages, such as the inter-connectivity of the recipients of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). To understand the relationship between FDI and technological advancement and whether recipients’ absorptive capacity matters, we model global FDI networks for the period 2009–2016. We find empirical evidence that the global FDI network has a core-periphery structure, and that core countries are more technologically developed than peripheral countries. We also find empirical evidence that a country’s centrality of position in the global FDI network is positively associated with the technological advancement of a country, and that the absorptive capacity of a country can moderate this relationship. Regression analyses using instrumental variable estimators confirm the robustness of our findings. The most striking finding of our research is the strong moderation effect of knowledge intensity, a constituent of absorptive capacity. This finding provides a nuanced understanding of absorptive capacity, demonstrating the ways a country can benefit from FDI by reshaping the factors related to absorptive capacity.     

Investigating the impact of the technological environment on survival chances of employer entrepreneurs

Given the big employment losses in the current economic and financial crisis, not only the creation of new jobs is important for economic and social welfare, but also the conservation of existing jobs. In this respect, it is crucial that firms that employ personnel survive. In this article, we investigate the role of the technological environment in determining the survival chances of employer entrepreneurs, defined as owner-managers of firms that employ personnel. We estimate survival models to analyze durations as an employer entrepreneur, using micro-panel data from EU-15 countries drawn from the European Community Household Panel. As indicators for the technological environment, we use a country’s R&D expenditures, a country’s employment share of high-tech and knowledge-intensive sectors, and a country’s number of patent applications to the European Patent Office. We find strong support for a positive relationship between these indicators of the technological environment in country j and year t and survival chances of employer entrepreneurs in that same country and year. Our analysis also suggests that a selection effect may be part of the explanation in the sense that in a more advanced technological environment, relatively more ‘high-quality’ individuals select into entrepreneurship.     

An exploration of multinational enterprise knowledge resources and foreign subsidiary performance

Successful international expansion requires that parent firms simultaneously transfer multiple MNE knowledge resources and their foreign subsidiaries effectively absorb and utilize the knowledge. In this study, we examine the relationships between multiple knowledge resources (technological and marketing knowledge), the relatedness between parents and foreign subsidiaries, and subsidiary performance. Relatedness is specifically linked to the type of knowledge being transferred from the parent (i.e., technological relatedness versus market relatedness). We hypothesize that subsidiary performance improves with (1) the integration of a parent firm's technological and marketing knowledge resources, (2) high technological (market) relatedness between a parent firm and subsidiaries for transfer of parent technological (market) knowledge and (3) the co-presence of high technological and market relatedness. We find general support in our analysis of pooled cross-sectional data on more than 4000 observations of foreign subsidiaries from 572 Japanese MNEs across 47 countries. Theoretical implications and future research are discussed.     

Neither developed nor emerging: Dual paths for outward FDI and home country innovation in emerged market MNCs

Emerged market multinational corporations (EDMNCs) ? those based in emerged markets that have transitioned out of emerging economic status ? have received little research interest from the international business scholarship, despite their growing presence in the global market. EDMNCs face significant competitive pressure to leverage cross-border knowledge to innovate and leapfrog their middle-zone status between emerging and developed market multinational corporations. Analyzing 174 publicly listed South Korean MNCs and their outward foreign direct investment (OFDI), we find that an EDMNC’s OFDI into developed and emerging markets contributes unequally to its home-country innovation. We also elaborate on the moderating effect of industry peers’ OFDI into developed countries through crowding out and spillover effects. These findings have implications for the OFDI and innovation literature in general, and particularly for international business scholarship focusing on an under-investigated category of MNCs that are increasingly becoming successful in international competition.     

Technological Diffusion and Growth among Nations: the Two Stages of Catching Up

The international diffusion of technology is fundamental to an understanding of the nature of technical progress and why growth differs among advanced industrialised countries. In the present technological gap model, innovation is supposed to take place in the leading country. In countries following behind, knowledge growth depends on the spill-over of technology from the leading country. The diffusion mechanism is first studied in a growth accounting framework. In a second step, a complete growth model is constructed in which there are two stages of catching up (falling behind). One involves closing (widening) the technological gap, the other one involves convergence (divergence) in the capital-labour ratio.     

Regime Dependent Sensitivity of Country Exchange Traded Funds to Common Risk Factors

If common factors jointly affect country stock markets, it is an indication of global stock market integration. Common factors may affect some markets more/less than other markets, an indication of the degree of global stock market integration/ segmentation. In this paper, we study the integration of global stock markets based on the returns on exchange traded funds (ETFs) for the US, Canada, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Australia and Japan. The relationship between country ETF returns and common risk factors may be time-varying across countries, and that favors a regime switching (RS) factor model for the dynamics of the country ETF returns. A RS factor model for the relationship between country ETF returns and common risk factors is fitted to daily data for the period from May 31, 2000 to March 31, 2014. We use the data to test a hierarchy of hypotheses on country ETF returns: (1) common factor exposure across all country ETFs and all regimes; (2) common factor exposure across some country ETFs and all regimes, and (3) common factor exposure across some country ETFs and some regimes. The RS factor model for ETF returns fits the data well and the common factors have variable effects across countries and over regimes.     

基于金融发展视角下的FDI与经济增长研究综述

众多的决策者与学者相信外商直接投资（FDI）有利于促进东道国的经济增长。但是实证研究结果却表明,FDI的经济增长效应在许多发展中国家却并不明确,主要原因在于FDI效应受到东道国自身环境和条件（即吸收能力）的制约。东道国的金融发展主要通过人力资本效应、技术创新效应、产业关联效应以及市场环境优化效应等机制对FDI与经济增长的关系产生影响。金融发展已经成为东道国FDI效应有效发挥的核心要素。也是未来FDI研究的一个重要的新方向。     

研发国际化趋势下我国技术创新模式的选择

技术创新能力一直是制约发展中国家经济增长和提升企业国际竞争力的关键因素。目前绝大多数发展中国家都在尝试通过吸引跨国公司研发投资来实现自身的技术跨越式发展。然而，跨国公司的研发国际化对东道国技术创新是一把“双刃剑”，选择怎样的技术创新模式来实现东道国利益的最大化就成为重要的研究课题。本文认为，在研发国际化趋势下我国应采取自主创新为主、模仿与合作创新为辅的组合模式。     

Beyond the home market effect: Market size and specialization in a multi-country world

The standard two-country model of international trade with monopolistic competition predicts a more-than-proportional relationship between a country′s share of world production of a good and its share of world demand for that same good, a result known as the ‘home market effect’. We first show that this prediction does not generally carry through to the multi-country case, as production patterns are crucially affected by third country effects. We then derive an alternative prediction that holds whatever the number of countries considered. This new prediction takes into account important features of the real world such as comparative advantage due to cross-country technological differences and lack of factor price equalization.     

Beyond the home market effect: Market size and specialization in a multi-country world

The standard two-country model of international trade with monopolistic competition predicts a more-than-proportional relationship between a country′s share of world production of a good and its share of world demand for that same good, a result known as the ‘home market effect’. We first show that this prediction does not generally carry through to the multi-country case, as production patterns are crucially affected by third country effects. We then derive an alternative prediction that holds whatever the number of countries considered. This new prediction takes into account important features of the real world such as comparative advantage due to cross-country technological differences and lack of factor price equalization.     

技术创新、最优碳税与国际减排合作

本文基于两国减排博弈拓展了Weber和Neuhoff(2010)的一国环境经济模型,进而探讨了非合作和合作两种情形下,具有不同技术创新水平时各国最优碳税的变化及其对社会福利的影响。结论表明,技术创新削弱了碳税之于减排的重要性,同时增强了国际合作减排的动力,而技术差距越大,合作意愿越小。当两国减排责任接近或者存在合作补偿的情况下,容易形成福利增进、达成减排合作。这为我国进一步加快低碳技术创新、充实南南减排合作,从而更好地应对气候变化谈判提供了理论依据和决策参考。     

Entrepreneurs meet financiers: Evidence from the business angel market

This paper formalizes and estimates the process of search and matching between entrepreneurs and financiers in the business angel (BA) market. Our theoretical model describes the market for entrepreneurial finance as a fair in which the two sides of the market can meet bilaterally and transform a rough entrepreneurial idea into a real start-up firm. We then collect a new dataset from the BA markets of 17 developed countries for the period 1996–2014, and we estimate the aggregate matching function expressing the number of deals as a function of the number of submitted entrepreneurial projects and of business angels. Empirical findings confirm the technological features assumed in the theoretical literature: positive and decreasing marginal returns to both inputs (stepping on toes effect), technological complementarity across the two inputs (thick market effect) and constant returns to scale. We discuss the theoretical and policy implications of these findings.     

Base-of-the-Pyramid (BOP) orientation and firm performance: A strategy tripod view and evidence from China

The Bottom of Pyramid (BOP) market in developing countries represents an enormous market opportunity. Serving the BOP segment, however, incurs significant risks and costs because BOP consumers are deprived of income and literacy. It remains unclear whether or not serving this market segment would benefit firm performance. Based on related literature, we propose a new construct – BOP orientation, and examine its impact on firm performance and an operating mechanism of such effect – the mediating role of bricolage innovation strategy that emphasizes recombination of existing resources to solve the unique problems faced by BOP consumers. Drawing on the strategy tripod view, we also investigate the contingency effects of both institutional and industry environments in an emerging economy. We collected survey data to test the conceptual framework from 238 firms in China, the world’s second largest BOP market. The results support a positive relationship between BOP orientation and firm performance and confirm that the performance impact of BOP orientation is channeled through bricolage innovation strategy. Further, we find that the effect of BOP orientation is contingent on both the institutional factors and the industry conditions. Specifically, government support strengthens while legal inefficiency weakens this effect; competitive intensity strengthens the effect, while technological uncertainty has no moderating role on this relationship. Contributions to extant literature and useful guidelines for firms of our research are discussed.     

International spillovers and absorptive capacity: A cross-country cross-sector analysis based on patents and citations

This paper brings together the issues of knowledge spillovers and absorptive capacity, by assessing the role of prior R&D experience in enhancing a country's ability to understand and improve upon external knowledge. International spillovers are found effective in increasing innovative productivity in laggard countries, while technological leaders are a source rather than a destination of knowledge flows. Quantitative estimates of the effect of absorptive capacity on innovative performance, through knowledge spillovers, show that absorptive capacity increases the elasticity of a laggard country's innovation to international spillovers, while its marginal effect is negligible for countries at the technological frontier.     

A strategic framework for technological innovations in support of the customer experience: A focus on luxury retailers

Luxury organizations have traditionally resisted technology, as they perceived it to be antithetical to the values of luxury. Recently, however, competitive and market pressures, compounded by the global pandemic, have prompted luxury organizations to utilize significant technological innovations to enhance their customer experience, mostly on an ad hoc basis. Across four case studies in the luxury fashion retail sector, we conduct 12 interviews with managers. This paper advances a framework that encourages luxury organizations to consider technological innovation in retailing from a strategic point of view. Such a view involves contemplating questions regarding what technology type to adopt (radical vs. incremental) and when the best timing is to adopt the technology (pioneering vs. following technological leaps). The framework identifies four retailer roles that emerge from the innovation process: facilitator, enabler, explorer, and initiator. Each role comprises a different set of risks, resource implications, and expected returns.     

Financial market development in host and source countries and their effects on bilateral foreign direct investment

We study an underexplored research question, namely whether financial market development in both host and source countries has an effect on bilateral stocks of foreign direct investment (FDI) and, particularly, whether the effect of financial market development in one member of the country pair conditions the effect of financial market development in the other member. We estimate gravity-type models in a global sample of 43 source and 137 host countries over the period 2001–12. We address reverse causality concerns by restricting the sample to observations where reverse causality, if existent, should be less relevant. Our major and robust findings are that bilateral FDI increases with better developed financial markets in both the host and the source country and that for developing host countries, financial market development in source and host countries functions as substitutes for each other.     

International spillovers and absorptive capacity: A cross-country cross-sector analysis based on patents and citations

This paper brings together the issues of knowledge spillovers and absorptive capacity, by assessing the role of prior R&D experience in enhancing a country's ability to understand and improve upon external knowledge. International spillovers are found effective in increasing innovative productivity in laggard countries, while technological leaders are a source rather than a destination of knowledge flows. Quantitative estimates of the effect of absorptive capacity on innovative performance, through knowledge spillovers, show that absorptive capacity increases the elasticity of a laggard country's innovation to international spillovers, while its marginal effect is negligible for countries at the technological frontier.     

The effect of social networks structure on innovation performance: A review and directions for research

Research on growth of innovations introduced to the market has gradually shifted its focus from aggregate-level diffusion to exploring how growth is influenced by a given social network structure's characteristics. In this paper, we critically review this branch of literature. We argue that the growth of an innovation in a social network is shaped by the network's structure. Borrowing from the field of industrial organization in economics, which defines itself as the study of the effect of market structure on market performance, we describe this new wave of research on growth of innovations as the effect of social network structure on innovation performance. Hence, social network structural characteristics should be incorporated into research on new product growth as well as into managerial marketing decisions such as targeting and new product seeding.We review how social network structure influences innovations' market performance. Specifically, we discuss (1) a networks' global characteristics, namely average degree, degree distribution, clustering, and degree assortativity; (2) dyadic characteristics, or the relationships between pairs of network members, namely tie strength and embeddedness; (3) intrinsic individual characteristics, namely opinion leadership and susceptibility; and (4) location-based individual characteristics, namely the degree centrality, closeness centrality, and betweenness centrality of an individual network member.Overall, we find that growth is particularly effective in networks that demonstrate the “3 Cs”: cohesion (strong mutual influence among its members), connectedness (high number of ties), and conciseness (low redundancy). We identify gaps in current knowledge, discuss the implications on managerial decision making, and suggest topics for future research.     

创新驱动战略下我国科技创新的现状、问题和对策——以中关村科技园为例

科技创新已成为我国经济发展的重要动力,但也面临着发展瓶颈和一系列制度难题。本文以中关村科技园区的企业为例,在北京市创新调查数据基础上,指出目前科技创新的问题表现在科技创新质量不高、企业创新活动不均衡以及企业创新应用性弱等方面。究其原因,企业创新活动的背后仍存在体制机制性因素。为此,应优化企业创新的制度环境,通过创造良好的创新环境提升企业家的创新意识,以财政和金融政策为企业的科技创新提供资金支持,并通过相关领域对外开放以实现创新质量的提升。