e-space
Manchester Metropolitan University's Research Repository

    Multinational enterprises’ R&D commitments in Chinese provinces: a configurational approach

    Allen, Matthew ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6463-9039, Demirbag, Mehmet, Allen, Maria L, Bhankaraully, Shabneez and Wood, Geoff (2024) Multinational enterprises’ R&D commitments in Chinese provinces: a configurational approach. Journal of International Management, 30 (4). 101158. ISSN 1075-4253

    [img]
    Preview
    Published Version
    Available under License Creative Commons Attribution.

    Download (622kB) | Preview

    Abstract

    Multinational enterprises (MNEs) are increasingly off-shoring some of their R&D to emerging markets, including China. Much of the extant literature on MNEs’ investments in R&D facilities abroad analyses technological and institutional factors at the national level, typically using regressions to examine how host-country institutions influence foreign MNEs’ outlays. It, therefore, tends to downplay the importance of sub-national and non-technology related institutions, and how configurations of home- and host-country institutions interact to influence R&D commitments abroad. Drawing on the global factory model and the Varieties of Capitalism approach, we identify five causal conditions that may influence MNEs’ R&D commitments abroad. Conducting an abductive fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis, we find four combinations of causal conditions are sufficient to explain substantial R&D commitments in different Chinese provinces. The combination of local corruption and provincial R&D intensity is important, as are the MNE’s home-country stock-market capitalization to GDP ratio and minority investor protection. We contribute to the literature on MNEs’ investments abroad by extending the importance of sub-national institutions to include those not directly related to technology. We also reveal how combinations of institutions (rather than individual ones acting independently) from the MNE’s home and host contexts explain MNEs’ R&D commitments in Chinese provinces.

    Impact and Reach

    Statistics

    Activity Overview
    6 month trend
    95Downloads
    6 month trend
    128Hits

    Additional statistics for this dataset are available via IRStats2.

    Altmetric

    Repository staff only

    Edit record Edit record