Learning through observation or through acquisition? Innovation performance as an outcome of internal and external knowledge combination

Does two-way FDI promote technological innovation? - Evidence from China

Two-way FDI indicates that China's technological catch-up process has entered a new stage. Mechanisms and conditions through which two-way FDI affects technological innovation require urgent attention. Based on China's provincial panel data, by using 2SLS tests, negative binomial model, and GMM estimation, this study finds that two-way FDI has a significant promoting effect on technological innovation, absorptive capacity has a positive moderating effect on the relationship between two-way FDI and technological innovation, and IPR protection has a negative moderating effect on the relationship between two-way FDI and technological innovation. The heterogeneity test shows that the interaction effect of IFDI, OFDI, and the moderating effect of absorptive capacity increase with the regional economic development and the passage of time. In contrast, the negative moderating effect of IPR protection decreases. This study contributes to the understanding of the two-way FDI at play in the technological innovation of emerging markets. It emphasises the promoting and restricting factors of two-way FDI in this process.

How does inward foreign direct investment shape emerging market firm invention patenting tendency? Evidence from China

Inward foreign direct investment (IFDI) carries critical implications for local firms, especially in the context of emerging markets, such as China. Scholars typically suggest that IFDI benefits local firms’ innovation through knowledge spillovers. Our study reveals a downside of such spillovers by articulating the negative influence of IFDI on local firms’ tendencies towards invention patenting (vis-a-vis utility model patenting) within their overall patenting. We further identify two contingency effects to help substantiate the mechanisms underlying the negative effect of IFDI on local firms’ invention patenting tendency. Using panel data on Chinese manufacturing firms during 2000–2010, we find that although industry-level IFDI intensity increases local firms’ total patent applications, it decreases the proportion of invention patents within total applications. This negative effect of IFDI is amplified by industry technology orientation and industry competitive intensity. Our study offers more fine-grained insights into the linkage between IFDI and local innovation by illustrating how local firms balance different types of patents in response to IFDI spillovers.

Exploring the longitudinal effects of emotional intelligence and cultural intelligence on knowledge management processes

Managing knowledge has become a new reality for multinational corporations (MNCs). Previous studies in the management field have closely examined personality traits as stable dispositional constructs over time, but they oversighted the possibilities that seemingly stable traits are likely to have different effects on outcomes in varying time waves. Combining horizontal and longitudinal surveys, this study collected two-wave datasets of 216 employees from MNCs, and built Fixed, Continuous and Interacting Models to investigate the effects of individual emotional intelligence (EI) and cultural intelligence (CI) as key traits on the processes of organizational knowledge management (KM) over time. This study discovered the fixed, continuous and interacting roles of EI and CI in KM processes at different times, and it also concluded that the traditional assumption of conceptualizing the effects of dispositional variables as fixed should be re-examined. The findings provided empirical and statistical evidence for future research as well as management suggestions for MNCs implementing KM practices.