Determinants of cross-national knowledge transfer and its effect on firm innovation
- PDF / 234,261 Bytes
- 24 Pages / 595 x 794 pts Page_size
- 99 Downloads / 247 Views
& 2007 Academy of International Business All rights reserved 0047-2506 $30.00 www.jibs.net
Determinants of cross-national knowledge transfer and its effect on firm innovation Masaaki Kotabe1, Denise Dunlap-Hinkler2, Ronaldo Parente3 and Harsh A Mishra4 1 The Fox School of Business and Management, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA; 2 Widener University, Chester, PA, USA; 3School of Business, Rutgers University, Camden, NJ, USA; 4School of Business, State University of New York, New Paltz, NY, USA
Correspondence: Masaaki Kotabe, The Fox School of Business and Management, Temple University, 349 Speakman Hall, Philadelphia, PA 19122, USA. Tel: þ 1 215 204 7704; Fax: þ 1 215 204 8029; E-mail: [email protected]
Received: 19 June 2003 Revised: 13 July 2006 Accepted: 2 August 2006
Abstract This study examines the determinants of international knowledge flow. From a resource-based perspective, it evaluates the impact of cross-national knowledge transfer on firm innovative performance. Based on 56,027 US patents owned by 53 selected firms in the US-based pharmaceutical industry, the results suggest that innovative performance is a curvilinear function of the international knowledge content used by a firm to innovate. As hypothesized, it was found that at (1) low and moderate levels of international knowledge content, a firm’s strategy to transfer international knowledge improves its innovative performance, and at (2) higher levels of international knowledge content, there are diminishing marginal returns to transferring knowledge from overseas. Journal of International Business Studies (2007) 38, 259–282. doi:10.1057/palgrave.jibs.8400261 Keywords: knowledge management; knowledge transfer; multinational firm; innovation; international sourcing
Introduction In multinational firms, international sourcing is recognized as an important part of global rationalization decisions to integrate multinational operations. While researchers have presented theoretical arguments and found evidence of the global strategic advantage or disadvantage from selective components, subassemblies and finished products sourcing strategies (Kotabe, 1998; Kotabe and Omura, 1989; Swamidass and Kotabe, 1993), research attention on the emerging area of firm knowledge transfer or knowledge sourcing is still scarce. In particular, the study of international knowledge transfer processes within multinational firms is at a relatively early stage (Buckley and Carter, 1999; Iwasa and Odagiri, 2004). Thus this topic is worthy of empirical investigation because it reaffirms the notion that firms are able to maximize innovative output when they renew their capabilities by transferring, sourcing, combining and integrating innovative knowledge not from the reallocation of capital and other assets, but through the transferring or sourcing of knowledge from strategically advantageous international locations (Bresnman et al., 1999). The innovation literature emphasizes two opposing views regarding the transferring of international knowledge. The first school
Data Loading...
