From local modification to global innovation: How research units in emerging economies innovate for the world

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Morris, Shad; Oldroyd, James; Allen, Ryan T.; Chng, Daniel Han Ming; Han, Jian
• 署名单位: Brigham Young University; Harvard University; China Europe International Business School
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS STUDIES
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2506
• DOI: 10.1057/s41267-022-00570-2
• 发表日期: 2023
• 页码: 418-440
• 关键词: capabilities and capability development; Emerging markets; global and local knowledge; Innovation and R&D; knowledge-based view

摘要

More and more companies are turning to emerging markets as sources of global innovation to help transform business and society. However, building innovation capabilities in emerging markets is still elusive for most companies. To understand how some companies are successfully building these capabilities, we examined workers within R&D units in China across six foreign multinational corporations. In contrast with prior literature that emphasizes a structural view of who the workers interacted with to innovate, our inductive analysis highlights a behavioral view of how R&D unit personnel interact during the problem and solution search process. We identified two key behaviors associated with the problem and solution search: (1) observing customers in their everyday context, and (2) uncovering general knowledge principles from internal experts. Respectively, these behaviors helped R&D workers to question assumptions about existing products as they relate to customers and to apply useful principles from expert knowledge rather than copying solution templates. Our findings offer an alternative path to building global innovation capabilities in markets where structural constraints exist for the company.