Chinese and Indian MNEs’ shopping spree in advanced countries. How good is it for their innovative output?
研究中国和印度中高科技企业收购欧美公司后，能否利用目标公司或地区的创新能力提升自身创新产出，发现只有知识基础强、地位高的企业才能成功。
Do emerging-market multinational enterprises (EMNEs) innovate after they have \nacquired advanced countries’ innovative firms and have invested in regions with high \ninnovative capacity? Do EMNEs’ absorptive capacity and status positively moderate the \nrelationship between their post-deal innovative output and the innovative capacity of \nthe target firm and/or region? We explore these questions by analyzing the universe of \ncross-border acquisitions accomplished by Chinese and Indian medium to high-tech \nfirms in Europe (EU28) and the USA during 2003–2011. We find that EMNEs benefit \nfrom investing in regions with higher innovative capacities, with the exception of the \nmost innovative hubs where post-acquisition impacts on EMNEs’ innovative outputs \nturn out to be less straightforward than we expected. We also observe that EMNEs are \noften unable to benefit from innovative target firms, which is also in contrast with our \npredictions. Hence, we do not find conclusive evidence about the positive impact of \nEMNEs’ investments in developed countries. Rather, we reverse this perspective and \nargue that it is not just a matter of how innovative the target actors are in the host \ncountry, but of whether the investing EMNEs are able to mobilize these actors’ \nknowledge resources and interests to their own advantage. Only EMNEs with strong \nknowledge bases and high status standing can make it, the rest remain stranded, no \nmatter how innovative their target firm or location is.