Examining the role of intellectual capital on knowledge sharing in digital platform-based MNEs and its impact on firm performance

Abstract

Non-market strategies are strategies that happen outside the marketplace. Despite their increasing relevance, they have been overlooked when studying digital platform-based enterprises. To address this gap, our study focuses on digital platforms and builds and tests hypotheses in relation to digital platform based MNEs. First, we identify several antecedents and consequences of the adoption of non-market strategies by digital platform-based multinational enterprises (MNEs). Secondly, after conducting a survey on 11 digital platform-based MNEs, we deploy the PLS-SEM technique to analyze the data. We find that intellectual capital positively influences digital platform-based MNE subsidiaries' knowledge sharing and seeking. This, in turn, positively influences coordination and cooperation that ultimately positively affect firm performance. This study makes several contributions. First, it suggests that the evolution of digital platform-based MNEs involves also non-market strategies. Second, it finds that intellectual capital is among the most relevant antecedents of the adoption of non-market strategies by digital platform-based MNEs. Third, it reveals that the adoption of non-market strategies by MNE subsidiaries is conducive to highest levels of firm performance for digital platform-based MNEs themselves. Last, it finds that coordination and cooperation represent enablers of the relationship between knowledge transfer and firm performance.