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Emerging economy multinationals (EMNEs) are increasingly internationalizing their operations as well as moving from imitation towards innovation. We study the impact of internationalization on innovation in the context of EMNEs. Specifically, we propose a curvilinear relationship between outward foreign direct investment and patenting activity of these firms. Data on Indian biopharmaceutical firms from 1997 to 2013 is used to empirically test our hypotheses. Controlling for firm specific characteristics such as firm size and R&D expenditure, we find that innovation decreases in the initial stages of internationalization. However with increased internationalization, the relationship becomes positive. In the third and final stage of internationalization, the costs of international expansion outweigh the benefits and the impact on innovation becomes negative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how emerging economies (EE) overcome their latecomer disadvantages and catch up technologically with developed economies (DE). Specifically, we examine the nature of technologies that EE firms innovate in (namely emerging or mature technologies) and also investigate the role of governmental effort and firm activity in directing technology development. Data from 57 countries on patents filed with USPTO from 2000 to 2008 is used to test our hypotheses. We find that government R&D efforts are more likely to focus on mature technologies whereas R&D efforts by independent firms are more likely to focus on emerging technologies. We also find that firms are more likely to innovate in mature technologies, and that EE firms may have higher propensity to innovate in mature technologies than DE firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper identifies factors at the project, firm and country level that influence a firm's offshore make-or-buy decision for research and development (R&D) activities. Specifically, the paper studies multi-level factors and their interactions that affected the decisions of pharmaceutical firms of whether to conduct clinical trials within their own foreign affiliates (captive offshoring) or with foreign third party vendors (offshore outsourcing). Drawing upon institutional theory and the resource-based view (RBV), we posit that the type of projects offshored (core versus non-core), the size of the R&D pipeline, the quality of regulatory institutions specific to the industry and the overall country affect the captive offshoring vs. offshore outsourcing decision. Our empirical research setting is the global biopharmaceutical industry from 1997 to 2005. We test our hypotheses using detailed data from 9,808 clinical trials undertaken by 57 firms across 48 countries. Each clinical trial is located in more than one site, and we study the choice between offshore outsourcing and captive offshoring for a total of 69,103 clinical trial sites. By integrating factors at multiple levels, we contribute to the literature on offshoring, which has mostly focused on factors at separate and isolated levels. Our results show that core projects tend to be retained within the firm boundary. Firms are also overall more likely to choose offshore outsourcing when they have larger R&D pipelines. However, this changes when they offshore to countries with weaker institutions. A counterintuitive finding of this study is that overall country level institutions are important for the offshore sourcing decision while industry specific institutions are not relevant. Our empirical analysis results support our theoretical framework and demonstrate the importance of accounting for multiple factors across different levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]