Abstract
Adopting a microfoundations approach to the analysis of intra-multinational enterprise (MNE) knowledge integration, we focus on mobile inventors and their boundary-spanning experience. Using inventor-patent data on US-based MNEs, we show that intra-organizational cross-border mobility and inter-organizational mobility have respectively a positive and a negative effect on knowledge integration. Cross-border mobility within the MNE enables the temporary co-location of mobile inventors in different units, facilitating the dissemination of their knowledge within the MNE. Conversely, “job-hopping” inventors may remain organizational outsiders, which hinders their ability to foster intra-MNE knowledge integration.
Highlights
One of the main goals of multinational enterprises (MNEs) is to ensure that their dispersed knowledge is available throughout the complex firm organization (Bartlett & Ghoshal, 1989; Kogut & Zander, 1993)
Starting from the knowledge-based theory of the MNE (Gupta & Govindarajan, 1991, 2000; Kogut & Zander, 1993), according to which the latter can be conceived as an efficient organizational vehicle to create, share and recombine tacit and idiosyncratic knowledge across borders, we explore knowledge sharing and integration by placing these phenomena at the level of the individual actors that are responsible for these processes, namely the inventors
Consistent with the literature on intra-MNE boundaries (e.g., Schotter & Beamish, 2011; Schotter et al, 2017), we investigate the role of mobile inventors, and support the idea that inventor mobility within dispersed organizations can be conceived as a critical integrative mechanism (Schotter et al, 2021; Singh, 2008)
Summary
One of the main goals of multinational enterprises (MNEs) is to ensure that their dispersed knowledge is available throughout the complex firm organization (Bartlett & Ghoshal, 1989; Kogut & Zander, 1993). While intra-organizational cross-border mobility eases communication, spurs trust-based relationships, and in creases inventors’ firm-specific human capital, facilitating the dissemi nation of their knowledge within the MNE, “job-hopping” inventors may be perceived as potential channels for knowledge leakage and remain organizational outsiders, which hinders their ability to develop key rela tional assets that are essential to foster intra-MNE knowledge integration. We explore these issues using data on over 170,000 inventor-patent pairs, involving a cohort of approximately 40,000 inventors and 68,000 patents granted to 128 US-based MNEs operating in the pharmaceutical and semiconductor industries. By documenting the positive effect of cross-border mobility on the intra-MNE knowledge integration, this study offers insights to the strand of literature highlighting the time dimension of co-location (Lavoratori, Mariotti, & Piscitello, 2020) and its micro-level implications ( Catalini, 2018; Chai & Freeman, 2019)
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