Marketing

Strategic sourcing

Philosophy

Tourism

China

Economics

Destinations

Empirical evidence

Business

International trade

Economic geography

Subsidiary

Emerging markets

International political economy

Politics

Political science

Epistemology

Strategic financial management

Industrial organization

Multinational corporation

Finance

Strategic planning

Economia Politica

Emerging economies have become new destinations for knowledge sourcing, forcing Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) to reconfigure their global innovation strategies and structure. While foreign subsidiaries located in emerging economies were conventionally viewed as having market or efficiency seeking roles, they have started to evolve towards knowledge-seeking roles. We argue that the conventional wisdom shall be reassessed considering this recent shift. We empirically investigate 129 manufacturing MNE subsidiaries of Fortune 500 companies in China, in terms of their roles and sources of technology. Our results indicate that market and knowledge seeking subsidiaries located in China tend to have a positive impact on the generation of new knowledge, either through locally established MNE R&D laboratories or through collaborations with local firms and scientific institutions.

Subsidiary roles as determinants of subsidiary technology sourcing: empirical evidence from China