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This study aims to investigate how firms’ internationalization activities through exporting influence their organizational learning. Specifically, this study examines how the level of exporting and geographic market scope impact a firm’s exploratory and exploitative R&D investment differently.

Using a sample of 7,055 firms in Spain during the period 2006–2011, the study uses regression analysis (generalized least squares random effects) to test various hypotheses.

Although exporting improves organizational learning, learning opportunities vary for different aspects of exporting. Specifically, the level of a firm’s exporting has a significant positive effect on its exploitative R&D investment, whereas geographic market scope of a firm increases its exploratory R&D investment.

The findings can aid in shaping policies and firms’ decisions pertaining to exporting and exploratory and exploitative R&D investment. As the findings indicate that, the determinants of exploratory and exploitative R&D investment are different, managers and policymakers, who aim at a specific type of R&D investment, should understand which exporting strategy they should pursue.

Prior research suggests that exporting improves organizational learning. This study extends this knowledge by showing that different aspects of exporting, specifically, the level of exporting and geographic market scope, drive different types of organizational learning.

Purpose – Integrating insights from the literatures on internationalization and knowledge externalities, we posit that the reservoirs of scientific knowledge residing in different locations around the world have significant power in explaining interfirm performance variations. We assert that the ability to access and exploit such intangible resources differs considerably across multinationals, according to both firm-specific and exogenously determined factors.

Methodology – Unlike previous research that typically focuses on knowledge flows within one nation or between two countries, our statistical analysis combines firm-level data with industry-level information on 18 countries and 15 manufacturing sectors.

Findings and implications – The empirical findings indicate that the performance-enhancing effect of global knowledge reservoirs is positive and often higher than that of a firm's own knowledge. Whereas some multinationals excel at exploiting such intangible resources, others fail to do so successfully. In this respect, the results indicate that a firm's ability to benefit from global knowledge reservoirs is positively associated with its degree of international diversification, the intensity of its own research efforts, and exogenously determined opportunities pertaining to different technological domains.

Since the beginning of the 21st century, China’s outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) is growing steadily and Chinese multinationals (MNCs) are playing an increasingly important role in the global economy. Thus, the number of papers focusing on China’s OFDI and Chinese MNCs has been increasing during the last years. The aim of this chapter is to carry out a review of the empirical papers dealing with Chinese MNCs published between 2002 and 2012 in high-impact international business and management journals.

This chapter reviews 43 empirical papers focusing on Chinese MNCs that were published in nine major scholarly journals between 2002 and 2012.

We report individual and institutional contributions, the theories and methods used, the research topics, and the main findings. We also discuss implications for future research.

Some previous literature reviews have dealt with research on China’s OFDI and Chinese MNCs. Nevertheless, none of the earlier reviews dealt specifically with empirical papers; neither did they provide an analysis of both individual and institutional contributions.

It is well known that entrepreneurs possess human, political and social capital that allow them to be successful. While we know that each of these “capitals” possess value, we know much less about how they interact – for example, are they substitutes or complements? – and whether where the capital was acquired matters. The latter point is particularly Germaine to the issue of global entrepreneurship and the importance of returnee entrepreneurs for economic development. We provide an overview of this research to date and call for an agenda that concentrates more on the total value a portfolio of these capitals generates and on how that capital is acquired both at home and overseas.

This volume of Progress in International Business Research includes a selection of 13 papers from the 35th European International Business Academy (EIBA) annual conference, which was held in Valencia (Spain) from the 13 to the 15 of December 2009. Following the usual guidelines for EIBA annual conference organization, papers submitted to this conference had a double-blind revision process. The acceptance rate for oral presentations was 68%.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the effectiveness of innovation protection mechanisms in four high-tech industries in Malaysia.

A questionnaire survey is administered to 339 managers working in four Malaysian high-tech industries.

The authors find that in most industries, patents are considered as the most effective innovation protection mechanism, while lead time is considered as least effective. In firms with private and foreign ownerships, patents and in firms categorized as “others” “moving quickly down the learning curve” are considered as the most effective protection mechanisms. It also emerges that “being first to market (lead time)” is considered as the least effective protection mechanism under all ownership structures. Further, young and middle-aged firms report patents, while old firms report secrecy as the most effective innovation protection mechanisms.

This paper restricted analysis to the high-tech sector in Malaysia, and thus, the findings are not generalizable to other industries. Second, this paper took into consideration only four innovation protection mechanisms. The authors suggest that future research should investigate the issue at hand in other industries and consider other innovation protection mechanisms to have a holistic view of how Malaysian firms view different innovation protection mechanisms.

In addition to providing inputs for policy-making, the results of this paper are expected to help practitioners in deciding on the right kind of innovation protection mechanisms for their innovations based on their industry, ownership structure and firm age.

This paper is the first of its kind conducted in the Malaysian high-tech sector and as such is expected to help policy-makers to design and implement effectively innovation protection policies.

The purpose of this study is to identify the relationship between collaborative innovation and the financial performance of information technology (IT) firms through the mediating role of strategic agility and absorptive capacity. Customer knowledge management capability (CKMC) is also explored as a potential moderator.

Data were collected from 300 respondents working in different small to medium IT enterprises operating in different cities around Portugal. The simple random sampling method was used for data collection, and Smart partial least squares-structural equation modeling (Smart PLS-SEM version 3.2.8) was used to test the hypotheses.

The findings demonstrate that collaborative innovation contributes significantly to the financial performance of IT firms in Portugal. The results also indicate that absorptive capacity and strategic agility both positively and significantly affect the relationship between collaborative innovation and firms’ financial performance. However, while the moderating role of CKMC has a positive and significant effect on the relation between collaborative innovation and strategic agility, CKMC insignificantly moderates the relation between collaborative innovation and absorptive capacity.

Few studies have explicitly connected collaborative innovation with firms’ financial performance; this study attempts to fill that gap. Moreover, this research investigates the mediating role of strategic agility and absorptive capacity in the relationship between collaborative innovation and financial performance. Finally, by discussing the moderating effect of CKMC, which leads to enhanced financial performance, this study proposes that when complex and unpredictable situations occur, managers should focus on customer-oriented strategies and innovation at the same time to outpace their competitors.