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Article
Publication date: 26 August 2021

Hongxia Zhang and Huixin Yang

To reconcile the existing contradictory conclusions on the relationship between cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As) and innovation, this paper aims to propose a…

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Abstract

Purpose

To reconcile the existing contradictory conclusions on the relationship between cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As) and innovation, this paper aims to propose a theoretical model of the impact of cross-border M&As on technological innovation and explore the moderating role of institutional distance from the perspective of springboard theory and new institutional theory.

Design/methodology/approach

Through the use of the two-way fixed effect model and the U-test method, the authors test the hypotheses based on a sample of cross-border M&A events of Chinese manufacturing enterprises during the period from 2006 to 2019.

Findings

The research shows that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between cross-border M&As and technological innovation. Furthermore, formal institutional distance moderates the inverted U-shaped relationship in such a way that it reaches its turning point at a smaller scale of cross-border M&As, and the inverted U-shaped relationship is steeper when formal institutional distance is relatively high. The informal institutional distance moderates the inverted U-shaped relationship in such a way that it reaches its turning point at a larger scale of cross-border M&As and the inverted U-shaped relationship is flatter when the informal institutional distance is relatively high.

Originality/value

The research conclusions integrate heterogeneous views of the existing research, further clarify the influence mechanism and boundary conditions between cross-border M&As and technological innovation, identify the different moderating roles of formal institutional distance and informal institutional distance and enrich the literature on knowledge transfer and recombinant innovation during post-merger integration.

Details

Journal of Knowledge Management, vol. 26 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1367-3270

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 2 January 2024

Xianglin Zhu, Naiding Yang, Mingzhen Zhang and Yu Wang

Technical knowledge is a key factor in firm innovation. This study aims to construct a theoretical framework of technological boundary-spanning search, exploratory innovation and…

Abstract

Purpose

Technical knowledge is a key factor in firm innovation. This study aims to construct a theoretical framework of technological boundary-spanning search, exploratory innovation and exploitative innovation to help firms adjust their search strategies and improve the effect of external resources on internal innovation.

Design/methodology/approach

The study uses questionnaires to collect data and conducts empirical analysis using SPSS25 and AMOS24.

Findings

Technological boundary-spanning search is positively correlated with ambidextrous innovation. Additionally, knowledge base positively moderates the effect of technological boundary-spanning search on ambidextrous innovation and knowledge distance negatively moderates the effect of technological boundary-spanning search on ambidextrous innovation. When a firm’s knowledge base is robust, its ambidextrous innovation can benefit more from technological boundary-spanning search. Additionally, when the knowledge distance is less, a firm’s ambidextrous innovation can benefit more from technological boundary-spanning search.

Originality/value

Considering organizational ambidexterity, this study divides firm innovation into exploratory innovation and exploitative innovation and presents a theoretical framework for the effect of technological boundary-spanning search on ambidextrous innovation. Additionally, it provides a comprehensive understanding of the crucial roles of knowledge base and knowledge distance in the relationship between technological boundary-spanning search and exploratory and exploitative innovation.

Details

Management Decision, vol. 62 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0025-1747

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 18 July 2016

Dorota Leszczyńska and Erick Pruchnicki

A multinational company (MNC) looking to locate within a cluster is mainly interested in gaining access to scarce and highly valuable tacit knowledge. The transfer of such…

Abstract

Purpose

A multinational company (MNC) looking to locate within a cluster is mainly interested in gaining access to scarce and highly valuable tacit knowledge. The transfer of such resources first requires sharing a certain degree of architectural and specific knowledge. This paper aims to examine the transfer of systemic technological expertise (specific tacit knowledge) that is incorporated into organisational practices (architectural knowledge). To quantify the level of knowledge transfer involved, the present study defines the architectural distance between the MNC and the cluster.

Design/methodology/approach

The mathematical expression of acquisition performance is inferred from a conceptual study that formulates hypotheses regarding the impact of these variables on knowledge transfer. The MNC chooses its location in such a way as to maximise this performance.

Findings

Applying a mathematical model to knowledge transfer between two of the MNC units helps to determine if the locally acquired knowledge could benefit other units of the MNC.

Research limitations/implications

The present study defines the architectural distance between the MNC and the cluster. This architectural distance is defined by a vector composed of social, organisational, cultural, institutional, technological and geographic distances between the new acquisition and its network of local partners, on the one hand, and the MNC, on the other. Knowledge transfer also depends on the business players’ trust and motivation. Further research through a quantitative study would be useful to improve the links between the proposed mathematical model and the efficiency of an MNC’s location within a cluster.

Practical implications

The solution to the optimisation problem allows to put forward a simple decision criterion to assist a manager who has to face the problem of an optimal location choice.

Originality/value

First, this study contributes to a better understanding of how knowledge transfer effects may interact with cluster effects, while explaining a subsidiary’s performance with regard to location. Second, it provides an interpretation of the concept of knowledge embeddedness by showing that the effective transfer of architectural and specific knowledge involves the prior sharing of a certain amount of this knowledge.

Book part
Publication date: 5 July 2016

Pankaj C. Patel and David R. King

The globalization of knowledge has driven an increased emphasis on cross-border, high-technology acquisitions where a target firm in a technology industry is acquired by a firm in…

Abstract

The globalization of knowledge has driven an increased emphasis on cross-border, high-technology acquisitions where a target firm in a technology industry is acquired by a firm in another nation. However, learning depends on similarity of knowledge, and we find that needed similarity can be provided by either technology or culture. As a result, firms can learn from acquiring targets at increasing cultural distance or at increasing technological distance, but not both. We find an interaction where acquisitions made at longer cultural distances and less technological distance, and acquisitions at shorter cultural distances and greater technological distance improve financial performance. This means technological distance and cultural distance are substitutes or represent a trade-off where improved acquisition performance depends on having commonality (low distance) for one of the variables.

Article
Publication date: 9 October 2017

Dorota Leszczynska and Erick Pruchnicki

A multinational corporation (MNC) looking to locate within a cluster is mainly interested in gaining access to scarce and highly valuable tacit knowledge. The transfer of such…

Abstract

Purpose

A multinational corporation (MNC) looking to locate within a cluster is mainly interested in gaining access to scarce and highly valuable tacit knowledge. The transfer of such resources first requires sharing a certain degree of architectural and component knowledge. The social, organizational, cultural, institutional, technological, and physical distances between a MNC and the new subsidiary, as well as its local partners, offer a good indication of the way the architectural and technological knowledge is shared. The purpose of this paper is to examine the transfer of systemic technological expertise (component tacit knowledge) that is incorporated into organizational practices (architectural knowledge).

Design/methodology/approach

The mathematical expression of localization performance is inferred from a conceptual research that formulates hypotheses regarding the impact of these variables on knowledge transfer. The MNC chooses its location in such a way as to maximize this performance.

Findings

This research contributes to a better understanding of how knowledge transfer effects may interact with local effects, while explaining a subsidiary’s performance with regard to location.

Research limitations/implications

In order to apply this model, one would need to numerically compute the variables of this model and the performance in order to obtain a numerical estimation of the variables, by the econometric methods, which intervenes in the performance. Then one could use this numerical expression of the performance as a specific criterion of localization. Indeed it would be sufficient to evaluate both architectural and component knowledge which could be exchanged as well as different distances and the motivation for each of possible localizations and to select the one which gives the maximal numerical value for the performance.

Practical implications

The authors deduced from the mathematical model a simple decisional criterion for a manager in search of an optimal location.

Originality/value

This research provides an interpretation of the concept of knowledge embeddedness by showing that the effective transfer of architectural and component knowledge involves the prior sharing of a certain amount of this knowledge.

Details

Journal of Management Development, vol. 36 no. 9
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0262-1711

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 19 January 2021

Javier Amores-Salvadó, Jorge Cruz-González, Miriam Delgado-Verde and Jaime González-Masip

This paper investigates the impact of green technological distance (GTD) – environmental technological knowledge distance between the firm and the industry – on the adoption of…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper investigates the impact of green technological distance (GTD) – environmental technological knowledge distance between the firm and the industry – on the adoption of proactive and reactive environmental strategies and whether this relationship is moderated by different manifestations of green structural capital, i.e. environmental incentives, senior environmental responsibilities and external environmental communication.

Design/methodology/approach

The empirical analysis is conducted on a sample of 202 manufacturing companies from Spain. Hierarchical regression analysis was used to examine the moderating effect of green structural capital.

Findings

Results show that the role of green structural capital as guiding factor of the environmental response of the firm and organizational support to cope with the GTD between the firm and the industry is diverse and depends on the manifestation of green structural capital under analysis. The establishment of environmental incentives for managers and the presence of environmental information in the firm's external communications – as two expressions of green structural capital – show a different behavior when facing the environmental technological challenge, supporting environmental reactive and proactive strategies respectively. In addition, GTD increases the adoption of reactive environmental strategies, while it has no direct effect on the implementation of proactive environmental practices.

Originality/value

Using the novel construct of GTD and the analysis of a so far unstudied interaction, the study contributes to the literature on intellectual capital and environmental strategy considering the technical change associated to the environmental challenge. In so doing, it improves the understanding of the role of green structural capital as a guiding factor of the environmental response of the firm and organizational support to cope with the GTD between the firm and the industry.

Details

Journal of Intellectual Capital, vol. 22 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1469-1930

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 10 December 2018

Feng Zhang and Guohua Jiang

Firms increasingly diversify their technological competencies to achieve different strategic objectives. This study aims to explore the impacts of technological knowledge…

Abstract

Purpose

Firms increasingly diversify their technological competencies to achieve different strategic objectives. This study aims to explore the impacts of technological knowledge characteristics on patenting choices for inventions created by subsidiaries in an uncertain and fast changing environment.

Design/methodology/approach

The data used in this study are patents granted to the world largest firms by the USPTO for inventions attributable to their subsidiaries in China between 1996 and 2005. In addition, the patent data from State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) of China are used for the matching in terms of filing patent applications in both USA and China for a same piece of technology. A discrete Logit model is used to examine the effects of technological distance and categories on Chinese patent application and international priority.

Findings

The findings suggest that firms have priority to seek international patent protection, instead of host country protection, for valuable subsidiary inventions in their background and marginal technological fields. In addition, a firm may seek host country legal protection simultaneously for inventions built upon knowledge from technologically distant fields.

Research limitations/implications

As we are more interested in protecting technological knowledge, the protection of other types of knowledge, such as organizational knowledge, deserves further research attentions. Moreover, future research may expand current study by including small and medium firms, as well as firms in other developing economies.

Practical implications

While the economic and legal environment in China may have evolved since studied period, the results have practical implications for firms in other developing countries that are at an early stage of catching-up or those in a host location featuring a similar uncertain and fast changing environment. In particular, the study suggests that foreign firm managers would have more strategic choices of patenting than local firms in the host country. For strategically important inventions bridging complex knowledge from different technological areas, firms could seek protection in multiple countries simultaneously, including both home country and other major markets. Furthermore, managers could choose whether or not to protect a particular category of technologies in host country depending on value of the technology to the firm and the IPR protection of host country. Finally, the approach of looking at knowledge-level characteristics, which can be easily measured through readily available intra-firm information, provides managers with a practical and useful tool to make these strategic decisions.

Originality/value

This study represents an effort to extend the understanding on how foreign MNCs could generate and appropriate valuable technologies in an uncertain and fast-changing environment. In particular, the authors focus on how MNCs could use different international patenting patterns to benefit from subsidiary inventions. Whereas previous literature mainly focuses on country-level and firm-level determinants, this study approaches the topic through the lens of knowledge-level factors. By studying how knowledge characteristics determine firm strategic behaviors, the authors offer additional justifications of the knowledge-based view of the firm. Meanwhile, the findings enrich our understanding of an important component of MNC’s global strategies in managing their technologies through selectively patenting in different locations. Firms pursue diversified technologies for different strategic objectives. As subsidiary inventions become a very important source of firm competitiveness, MNCs have to face the trade-off between higher patenting costs and the appropriability of subsidiary generated knowledge. The findings suggest that it is not necessary for MNCs to protect all subsidiary inventions in host countries.

Details

Journal of Asia Business Studies, vol. 12 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1558-7894

Keywords

Open Access
Book part
Publication date: 18 July 2022

Ednilson Bernardes and Hervé Legenvre

Smart industry initiatives focus on intelligent and interconnected cyber-physical systems. These initiatives develop complex technical architectures that integrate heterogenous…

Abstract

Smart industry initiatives focus on intelligent and interconnected cyber-physical systems. These initiatives develop complex technical architectures that integrate heterogenous technologies, causing significant organizational complexity. Tapping into the digital capabilities of distant partners while capturing profit from such innovation is demanding. Furthermore, firms often need to establish and orchestrate inter-organizational collaborations without prior relations or established trust. As a result, smart industry initiatives bring together disparate organizational forms and institutional environments, distinctive knowledge bases, and geographically dispersed organizations. We conceptualize this organizational capability as ‘distant capabilities integration’. This research explores the governance mechanisms that support such integration and their relation to value capture. We analyse 11 IoT case studies organized in three categories (process, product and technologies) of smart industry initiatives. Building on existing literature, we consider different ways to describe distance, including knowledge heterogeneity and organizational, geographical, institutional, cultural and cognitive distance. Finally, we describe the governance mode appropriate for upstream (developing foundational technologies) and downstream (leveraging existing distant technologies) smart industry initiatives.

Details

Smart Industry – Better Management
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80117-715-3

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 26 August 2010

Sergio Biggemann

This paper reports the results of a three-year-long research on business relationships, relying on qualitative data gathered through multiple-case study research of four focal…

Abstract

This paper reports the results of a three-year-long research on business relationships, relying on qualitative data gathered through multiple-case study research of four focal companies operating in Australia. The industry settings are as follows: steel construction, vegetable oils trading, aluminum and steel can manufacture, and imaging solutions. The research analyzes two main aspects of relationships: structure and process. This paper deals with structure describing it by the most desired features of intercompany relationships for each focal company. The primary research data have been coded drawing on extant research into business relationships. The main outcome of this part of the research is a five construct model composed by trust, commitment, bonds, distance, and information sharing that accounts for all informants’ utterances about relationship structure.

Details

Organizational Culture, Business-to-Business Relationships, and Interfirm Networks
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-85724-306-5

Book part
Publication date: 10 December 2018

John Cantwell and Jessica Salmon

Scholars have examined, in various ways, the complexity of knowledge in innovation. Recently, research has begun to focus on the role of a continuous process of knowledge…

Abstract

Scholars have examined, in various ways, the complexity of knowledge in innovation. Recently, research has begun to focus on the role of a continuous process of knowledge recombination in our understanding of a changing structure of knowledge complexity and knowledge accumulation. Furthermore, we also claim that this process may reflect changes in the underlying innovation paradigm, or in other words the arrival of the information age. Yet, little is known about how knowledge complexity is increasing in the broader context of globalization, in which the influence of a rising diversity of locational sources may feature more prominently. We consider how knowledge recombination that relies upon the global spread of innovation activities will affect our theory of the relationship through which earlier contributions to knowledge become inputs to subsequent knowledge building that generates more (or less) complex knowledge artifacts. We propose that knowledge complexity rises when recombined elements are sourced across two dimensions of distance simultaneously, namely when sources which are derived from (i) disparate knowledge fields and (ii) distinct geographic locations are combined. We thereby develop an international business perspective on knowledge complexity through recombination by better appreciating the processes that may be necessary when knowledge is combined along global value chains. We also suggest some implications for changing organizational forms by highlighting the value of connecting previously unconnected geographically distant elements, which suggests a greater potential for more informal and indirectly diffused knowledge-based connections.

Details

International Business in the Information and Digital Age
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78756-326-1

Keywords

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