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This study aims to focus on a key unanswered question about how digitalization and the knowledge processes it enables affect firms’ strategies in the international arena.

The authors conduct a systematic literature review of relevant theoretical and empirical studies covering over 20 years of research (from 2000 to 2023) and including 73 journal papers.

This review allows us to highlight a relationship between firms’ international strategies and the knowledge processes enabled by applying digital technologies. Specifically, the authors discuss the characteristics of patterns of knowledge flows and knowledge processes (their origin, the type of knowledge they carry on and their directionality) as determinants for the emergence of diverse international strategies embraced by single firms or by populations of firms within ecosystems, networks, global value chains or alliances.

Despite digital technologies constituting important antecedents and critical factors for the internationalization process, and international businesses in general, and operating cross borders implies the enactment of highly knowledge-intensive processes, current literature still fails to provide a holistic picture of how firms strategically use what they know and seek out what they do not know in the international environment, using the affordances of digital technologies.

The purpose of this paper is to engage in a comprehensive review of the research on information technology (IT)-mediated international market-entry alliances.

This paper provides a theory-informed conceptual framework of IT-enabled cross-border interfirm relationships and performance outcomes. It integrates perspectives of resource-based view (RBV) and transaction cost economics (TCE) to argue that the establishment of interfirm IT capabilities enhances the marketing performance of the foreign partner in the host location by improving interfirm relationship governance. Furthermore, IT-related risks and contextual restrictions are identified as important moderators.

Conceptualisations of IT capabilities, IT-enhanced interfirm governance, and IT-led marketing performance improvement are suggested. Drawing on RBV and TCE, IT resources, related human resources, and IT integration between partner firms in combination enhances the ability of firms to manage the relationship more effectively through shared control, interfirm coordination, cross-firm formalisation, and hybrid centralisation. These benefits then bring about better upstream and downstream marketing performance in the host location. Additionally, IT capabilities help to mitigate possible contextual limitations and risks.

The paper offers a number of theory- and literature-informed research propositions which can be empirically tested in future studies.

Top managers of firms currently in or planning to enter international alliances for market entry should carefully consider effective development of interfirm IT capabilities in terms of readiness of hardware and software, human resources, and organisational resources.

The paper provides an integrated framework and propositions which contribute to limited understanding and appreciation of IT value in international market-entry alliances.

This study aims to explore how the absorptive capacity of emerging market multinationals (EMNEs) facilitates increased acquirer performance in industry exploration and technology exploration cross-border acquisitions (CBAs).

The research context for this study is Brazilian EMNEs and their CBAs. The final database contains 101 CBAs.

The authors find that industry exploration strategies negatively affect financial performance, but technology exploration strategies have a positive effect. The acquirer’s absorptive capacity can exacerbate the negative effects, except in instances of technology exploration strategies, where there is a demonstrable benefit from the acquirer’s absorptive capacity.

The study contributes first by providing a more nuanced understanding of the effects of absorptive capacity on postacquisition performance, depending on the type of knowledge explored. Second, by drawing on EMNE learning perspectives, the authors demonstrate the versatility of absorptive capacity in emerging markets.

The paper examines the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI), either greenfield investment or cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As), on domestic entrepreneurship.

This paper uses a panel dataset of 104 countries over ten years from 2006 to 2015 and multiple econometric techniques to control for potential endogeneity bias.

FDI, both in the form of greenfield investment and cross-border M&As, exerts positive spillover that encourages domestic entrepreneurial activities. While the benefit of greenfield investment in entrepreneurship is more pronounced in countries with higher levels of market capacity and institutional support, that of cross-border M&As is not influenced by these factors. On the other hand, human capital is important in promoting the positive effects of both types of FDI, and unless the level of human capital in the host economies reaches a certain threshold, greenfield investment can adversely affect domestic entrepreneurship.

Policies toward FDI need to focus on promoting the driving forces behind FDI spillover to counteract the potential negative crowding-out effect of FDI.

The paper contributes to the existing literature investigating the impact of FDI on domestic entrepreneurship by distinguishing between the two FDI modes of entry and taking into account the moderating effects of sociopolitical characteristics of the host economies.

Relying on mergers and acquisition transaction-level data set and adopting a more region-specific approach with a focus on industry-region pairs, this paper aims to examine how cross-border acquisitions (CBAs) have an effect, in terms of technological spillover and collaboration, on European regional clusters.

Adopting an industry-region pair approach, this study is based on a quantitative analysis of regional clusters belonging to 262 European regions and 25 patenting industries. Different thresholds of industrial specialization are used to identify clustering industries within a region. Invention performance at the regional cluster level is defined through two sets of different measurements to assess the impact of CBAs on invention quantity performance and internal and external technological collaboration.

The results reveal that CBAs have a positive and significant impact on the number of patents as well as the number of internal and external technological collaborations and that this effect is persistent over time. Furthermore, through exploring the interindustry technological spillover effect of CBAs registered in the same region of a cluster but outside the cluster itself, the authors found that CBAs in a regional cluster are inclined to produce technological spillovers within the cluster but no significant effects in the other industries of the region.

This paper is an attempt to empirically explore CBAs and technological spillover in European regional clusters. Therefore, it contributes to the debate, thanks to the use of an industry-region pair approach.

Given the importance of immigration and immigrant entrepreneurs in advanced economies, the authors take an entrepreneurial ecosystem perspective to study the home-country benefits possessed by immigrant entrepreneurs and how home-country entrepreneurial ecosystem factors affect immigrant entrepreneurial motivations, activities and outcomes.

This conceptual research paper follows McGaghie, Bordage and Shea's (2001) four-step new theory creation process, which suggests that new theories can be created through facts extraction from the extant literature.

The authors propose that although immigrant entrepreneurs are unable to take full benefit of the host-country entrepreneurial ecosystem due to blocked mobility, they do have capabilities to access and use their home-country entrepreneurial resources and opportunities. The authors further propose that home-country entrepreneurial capital can be systemically analyzed through the framework of the entrepreneurial ecosystem. The results imply that immigrant entrepreneurship as a social and economic phenomenon can be studied more holistically from both host- and home-country perspectives compared to the traditional research boundary of the host-country only.

The research focuses on the identification of home-country effects on immigrant entrepreneurship through the lens of the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Testable propositions provide directions for future empirical research on the field of immigrant entrepreneurship from a home-country perspective. The research concludes that a holistic immigrant entrepreneurship study should consider dual (host- and home-country) entrepreneurial ecosystems.

Immigrant entrepreneurs benefit from both host- and home-country entrepreneurial ecosystems. This paper suggests co-effects of dual entrepreneurial ecosystems lead to a high rate of entrepreneurship and business success within some immigrant groups. Policymakers can increase economic activities by developing and deploying programs to encourage immigrants to embed in host- and home-country entrepreneurial ecosystems.

Based on the framework of the entrepreneurial ecosystem, this paper brings a novel perspective to examining home-country effects on immigrant entrepreneurship. It theoretically conceptualizes that immigrants have higher entrepreneurship rates than native-born populations because they have access to extra home-country entrepreneurial capital.

The purpose of this study is to follw the process perspective approach in post-M&A (mergers and acquisitions) integration studies, with a focus on human resource function, to make the research literature relevant to HR integration process up to date.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, limited systematic literature review and study in this interface has previously been published.

Therefore, this conceptual study filled in the research gap by pointing out a clear framework on HR integration in cross-border post-acquisitions, reviewing both the content and process of HR integration. This paper contributes to future research on the HR integration process perspective in theoretical directions.

It addresses the gap in research and opens the avenues for M&A researchers to consider HR as the strategic partner during M&As and to study HR aspects in an integrated process perspective view. This approach complements socialized reviews and it suggests a process perspective on how to dispersed themes and interrelate topics. It provide a clear process perspective helps to develop a concurrent research agenda, which can guide future work in the field.

This paper delves into cross-border E-business, unraveling its intricate dynamics and forecasting its future trajectory.

This paper projects the prospective market size of cross-border E-business in China for the year 2023 using the GM (1,1) gray forecasting model. Furthermore, to enhance the analysis, the paper attempts to simulate and forecast the size of China’s cross-border E-business sector using the GM (1,3) gray model. This extended model considers not only the historical trends of cross-border E-business but also the growth patterns of GDP and the digital economy.

The forecast indicates a market size of 18,760 to 18,934 billion RMB in 2023, aligning with the consistent growth observed in previous years. This suggests a sustained positive trajectory for cross-border E-business.

Cross-border e-commerce critically shapes China’s global integration and traditional industry development. The research in this paper provides insights beyond statistical trends, contributing to a nuanced understanding of the pivotal role played by cross-border e-commerce in shaping China’s economic future.

This paper aims to examine how the volatility of foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows affects the volatility of corporate income tax revenue.

The study has used an unbalanced panel data set of 129 countries over the period 1981–2016 and the two-step system generalized methods of moment approach to perform the empirical analysis.

The main findings are that FDI volatility enhances the volatility of corporate income tax revenue in less advanced economies, but reduces it in relatively advanced countries. The positive corporate income tax revenue volatility effect of FDI inflows is far higher in non-tax haven countries than in tax haven countries. Additionally, FDI volatility exerts a higher positive effect on corporate income tax revenue volatility as countries experience greater dependence on natural resources. Finally, the positive effect of FDI volatility on corporate income tax revenue volatility is further amplified by higher FDI volatility.

One important limitation of the present analysis is the use of aggregate FDI inflows because of the lack of data over a long period on greenfield FDI inflows and cross-border mergers and acquisitions FDI inflows. Therefore, an avenue for future research could be to explore separately the effect of the volatility greenfield FDI inflows and the volatility of cross-border mergers and acquisitions FDI inflows on the volatility of corporate income tax revenue, when long-time series data (covering many countries) would be available.

These outcomes particularly shed light on the role of FDI volatility on the volatility of corporate income tax revenue, particularly in countries that are highly dependent on natural resources. Foreign capital flows, notably FDI flows, play an essential role for countries’ economic development through, inter alia, technology transfer, jobs creation and economic growth. Policymakers should aim to attract FDI, while also reducing their volatility, by designing and implementing policies and measures (such as those in favor of business environment improvement, property rights enforcement and political stability) that would assure foreign investors of the continuous high returns of their investments.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first time this topic is being addressed empirically in the literature.