John Cantwell

• PhD
• Professor (Full) at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Purpose This paper comes in the context of the European International Business Academy (EIBA) History project, and the long period analysed was broken down in six time windows (1975–1981, 1982–1988, 1989–1995, 1996–2002, 2003–2012; and 2013–2020), in line with the periodisation followed in writing such history. The main purpose was to identify the...

How has the spatial structure of the development of technological knowledge in international business (IB) shifted over time, moving between paradigms for IB and society? To answer this research question, we use the method of historical analysis and attempt to synthesize literature streams on international business history and technological paradig...

This article provides a commentary on the paper by Pitelis and Piteli on Hymer as the pioneer of the theory of the multinational enterprise (MNE). I suggest that Stephen Hymer and his contemporary, John Dunning, also laid the foundation for an analysis of an international business (IB) system, which reaches well beyond the theory of the MNE and its...

We argue that trans-local knowledge connections positively impact local epistemic inventor communities in global cities, using patent citations as an indicator of global knowledge connectivity. Patented inventions have become more concentrated in the most internationally connected global cities, increasing inter-regional inequality. We identify two...

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of an industry’s connectedness to foreign countries on knowledge sourcing. Design/methodology/approach The authors examine the research model through probit regression techniques to the 472,303-patent data across 16 industries derived from the United States Patent and Trademark Office....

A recent literature in International Business has argued that a contemporary trend towards techno-nationalism is attributable to a conflict between countries with stronger intellectual property (IP) rights and countries with weaker such rights. We contend instead that this trend mainly reflects a tension over competing interests in IP markets, as w...

This chapter examines the role of skilled migrants as an international business (IB) resource in stimulating knowledge creation in their country of residence (CR) firms and facilitating cross-border knowledge flows between their CR and their country of origin (CO) firms. Drawing on the current state of research on migration in IB at the firm level,...

This paper conducts an explorative study to examine the evolution of Multinational Corporation (MNC) subunit roles based on the characteristics of its competence creating (CC) activities. The study focuses on the heterogeneity of firm-specific evolutionary paths in the patterns of knowledge accumulation that support competence creating (CC) activit...

This article assesses the contributions of industry leaders, smaller corporations, and independent inventors to the international technological specialization of Great Britain in the interwar years. For the first time, we compare directly the contribution of these sources and combine the Chandlerian and “sources of invention” perspectives. The anal...

Drawing on population ecology theory (PET) which conceptualizes an individual organization's survival as a result of organizational changes at the population level, we explain why multinational enterprises (MNEs) from emerging markets prefer to enter countries with an existing population of co-national peers. Our study of a sample of Chinese MNEs s...

Purpose-This paper explains the mechanisms underlying the generation of two-way knowledge spillovers through the interaction of subsidiaries with differentiated local responsibilities and domestic firms. Design/methodology/approach-The study is based on firm-level panel data from a census of Colombian manufacturing firms for the period 2003-2012....

The patterns and sources of knowledge development in international businesses have become increasingly complex with each techno-socio- economic paradigmatic period of the mechanical, electromechanical, and information ages. This has implications not only for researchers in the technological innovation and knowledge flows domain but also for global...

Purpose While conventional views of foreign investment activity primarily relate to efficiency-seeking investments, the authors argue that most other outward foreign direct investments (OFDIs) likely have positive effects on income development in the home region. Data on the US urban system not only illustrates this but also shows that this impact...

In this conceptual paper, we discuss the evolutionary root causes of institutional complexity, defined as inherently incompatible prescriptions when different sources of institutions intersect at the same space and time. We suggest that societies are not delineated by clear-cut boundaries, but dynamically evolve along multiple co-existing levels of...

This chapter describes the evolution of international networks for innovation in international business. It proposes a framework that accounts for two key dimensions: time and the potential for knowledge recombination. Within this framework, the chapter describes the shift of studies from hierarchical to networked Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) i...

This paper explores the temporal sequencing of the evolution of internal and external knowledge sourcing by Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) in the pharma sector, between 1976 and 2016, a period that saw the biotechnology sector coalesce and gather momentum. We find that MNEs' knowledge sourcing followed a pattern of dynamic substitution, in which...

This research explores the enablers of emerging-market firms (EMFs) leapfrogging in the internationalization process. Although many studies on rapid internationalization focus on exporting activities, we expand the concept to a higher-commitment entry mode: foreign direct investment (FDI). In addition, we investigate the role of an understudied for...

The governance structures of the value-creating activities of MNEs have evolved towards more networked forms that are geographically highly concentrated and involve partnering with diverse actors. The experimentation that takes place within these corporate networks has a parallel on the government side, where subnational governments, and particular...

After a century of inter-regional income convergence, average incomes have been diverging between U.S. cities since the 1980s, calling for new policy agendas. We argue that policy research should move beyond its current focus on the effects of inter-city divergence from technological change, migration, and trade, to include the effect of outward fo...

Insights from social network research have generated significant advancements in disciplines such as sociology, economics, and psychology. In comparison, the incorporation of social network ideas into international business (IB) research remains more limited. The purpose of this special issue is to foster further research on social networks in IB....

A technological paradigm identifies the coherent features consistently present in the evolution of an innovation system over time. These shared characteristics refer to a widespread cluster of innovations during a given era that rely on a common set of scientific principles and on similar organizational methods. The idea of an overarching paradigm...

As emerging economy multinational enterprises (EMNEs) enter foreign countries in search of new markets, seeking to expand their knowledge bases, research on the type and nature of innovation activity is needed to address the impact of EMNEs' choices related to international expansion. Building on prior literature on entry mode and location choices,...

The direct top-down approach and indirect bottom-up approach are two ends of the spectrum in the role of government in developing an innovation ecosystem. Taking a hybrid approach, we develop the concept of the ecosystem enricher who fertilizes the interactions and linkages of multiple stakeholders in innovation ecosystems. In an in-depth case stud...

This paper investigates the evolution of the knowledge networks of the leading research-active, pharmaceutical and chemical multinational enterprises (MNEs). We use backward patent citations to identify the knowledge on which these firms build to develop their inventions. We examine the effects on the technological performance of 248 MNE sub-units...

This study identifies key mechanisms linking multinationality with the knowledge advantages of multinational corporations (MNCs). These mechanisms are the absorption of new knowledge by one individual MNC unit and the subsequent flows of such newly absorbed knowledge to other geographically distant units of the same firm. The intra-MNC and inter-un...

Frontiers of Strategic Alliance Research - edited by Farok J. Contractor March 2019

Consisting of formal and informal rules, cultural-cognitive schema, and routinized processes, institutions are the foundation of social life. Yet we do not have a systematic understanding of resistant roots of institutional diversity across societies. Following an evolutionary framework, we review the literature and discuss how a series of mutually...

This book provides some new ideas on the conceptualization of a shift in technological paradigm, and it explores in depth the relevance of this concept for research on innovation systems. It examines text-mining software and analyzes patent data as well as academic and business journals to illustrate the paradigm shift of newly emerging technologie...

Scholars have examined, in various ways, the complexity of knowledge in innovation. Recently, research has begun to focus on the role of a continuous process of knowledge recombination in our understanding of a changing structure of knowledge complexity and knowledge accumulation. Furthermore, we also claim that this process may reflect changes in...

The increasing interconnection of local, trans-local and transnational knowledge networks is the outcome of the coevolution of (i) knowledge centers, typically city regions, (ii) epistemic communities that are grounded in and connect these regions and (iii) firms, usually multinational enterprises (MNEs). This interaction has created opportunities...

We examine how, and to what extent, migrants in a host country attract foreign direct investment (FDI) from firms based in their country of origin (CO). Introducing the notion of institutional affinity, we argue that increased institutional affinity and increased connectedness of institutional environments of migrants’ CO and country of residence,...

Raymond Vernon made seminal contributions that helped to establish two major streams of 10.1057/978-1-137-00772-8_138 literature. The first, for which he is best known, is the product cycle model (PCM) which outlines a path of international trade and production for innovative new products. Although offering a good explanation of the growth of US fo...

Purpose Through increasing globalization, cities are becoming increasingly interconnected with each other. To remain competitive, it is necessary for cities to combine complementary non-local sources of knowledge with local knowledge sources. We contend that an increase in non-local knowledge sourcing tends to enhance local knowledge sourcing too....

This research looks into the innovative activities of subunits of large non-U.S firms in the U.S from 1969 to 1995, suggesting that the innovations in the subunits of multinational corporations are closely linked to their specializations in General Purpose Technologies (GPTs). GPTs enable recombining knowledge from different domains on an internati...

Purpose: This paper proposes locational ambidexterity as a location-specific factor based on an operation flexibility perspective, and explores why and how multinational corporations (MNCs) proactively deal with uncertainty by valuing locational ambidexterity in making location decisions. Design/methodology/approach: Location choice data for forei...

This study is inspired by a discussion that there is a shift towards more internationalised innovation networks in multinational corporations. In this study, we introduce the concept of general purpose technologies (GPTs) and examine the role of GPTs in the internationalisation of innovation activities. Based on an U.S. Patent and Trademark Office...

The Journal of International Business Studies (JIBS) is a journal with a high academic standing, and the leading journal in the field of international business (IB) research. It has become more open to new authors and to a wider range of IB scholarship. IB scholars study cross-border aspects of business activity. Some recent JIBS special issues hav...

While classical economic theories of growth emphasised international capital accumulation, and finance-based theories of foreign investment stressed international interest rate differentials and risk reduction, the technological accumulation approach examines international knowledge building by multinational enterprises and their international busi...

Firms seeking to expand across borders look for advantages offered by the foreign location in conjunction with their own capabilities. Migrants by virtue of their inherited and acquired knowledge of the business and the institutional environment of their country of origin and their country of residence can be valuable sources of knowledge for firms...

Firms seeking to expand across borders look for advantages offered by the foreign location in conjunction with their own capabilities. Migrants by virtue of their inherited and acquired knowledge of the business and the institutional environment of their country of origin and their country of residence can be valuable sources of knowledge for firms...

In this study, we examine the landscape of JIBS authorship over time to assess: (1) the accessibility of JIBS to new contributors, and (2) the diversity of authors contributing to JIBS. Our analysis of author data from 1972 to 2014 shows that JIBS is becoming more accessible, as indicated by the high and sustained proportion of first-time contribut...

Raymond Vernon made seminal contributions that helped to establish two major streams of international business literature. The first, for which he is best known, is the product cycle model (PCM) which outlines a path of international trade and production for innovative new products. Although offering a good explanation of the growth of US foreign d...

The new techno-economic paradigm of the information age has brought about new structures and processes in international business (IB). In this article, we examine the changing nature of the competitive advantages of places, the competitive advantages and strategies of firms, and the governance structure of IB networks in what has also been called t...

The innovation-driven multinational enterprise (MNE) has dominated international business (IB) research for several decades now. Beginning with the award-winning research of Dunning, there have been calls for IB researchers to rediscover the importance of locations. Recent work has emphasized that firms and locations co-evolve with one another, as...

The Selection Committee for the JIBS Decade Award was pleased to recommend the presentation of the 2014 JIBS Decade Award, recognizing the most influential article published in JIBS 10 years ago, to Gary Knight (Williamette University) and Tamer Cavusgil (Georgia State University) for their 2004 article, “Innovation, organizational capabilities, an...

In this study the concept of General Purpose Technologies (GPTs) is fitted into the context of the changing profile of international corporate innovations and the underlying trajectory of national innovation systems. As GPTs are employed as a “bridge” connecting technologically and geographically separate knowledge, the specialization of innovation...

The purpose of this study is to examine the extent to which migrants in a host country exert a gravitational pull on investments of multinational firms of their country of origin (COO). More importantly, we examine whether the patterns and the relationship between migration and investment of multinational firms from high-income countries is differe...

A major aim of this book on the eclectic paradigm is to enable scholars coming to the International Business (IB) field from a cognate discipline, perhaps for the first time, to be able to connect their own way of thinking about IB issues to a framework for IB analysis that is already well established in our field. It is also hoped that this collec...

This paper examines the co-evolution of MNE activities and institutions external and internal to the firm. We develop a theoretical framework for this analysis that draws on the more recent writings of Douglass North on institutions as a response to complex forms of uncertainty associated with the rise in global economic interconnectedness, and of...

This paper investigates the international technological specialization of the British regions in the interwar period. It is based on a novel dataset of more than 8,000 patents granted in the USA to British inventions. The analysis focuses on the impact of the dispersion of corporate innovation on the pattern of regional technological advantage, and...

JIBS mourns the loss of Alan Rugman, a major contributor to JIBS and the field of international business studies over a period of more than 40 years, who passed away suddenly on 8 July 2014. Professor Rugman was a former President of AIB (2004–2006) and Dean of the AIB Fellows, a long-time JIBS Consulting Editor, and author of several highly cited...

In this editorial, we assess the cross-disciplinary connections of JIBS by examining its citation network, which spreads across no less than 36 disciplines or fields. Using a citation network of 166 citing and 645 cited journals, we investigate JIBS’ interdisciplinarity using the intermediation and integration approaches of network analysis. Our an...

It has been demonstrated that more creative innovative activities of subunits of multinational companies (MNCs) rely upon the munificence of local knowledge in the host country. Here, we argue that the strength of international business network connections of a host location influences the potential accessibility of international knowledge and henc...

This chapter considers the relationship between the globalization of business and the international location of technological innovation in historical perspective These processes, globalization and innovation, are the two key mechanisms through which capitalism has developed and progressed as an economic system over the past 200 years or so. Somewh...

In the early development of the international business field, the focus of attention moved from the country level to the firm level, and interest in location issues declined. More recently, firm-based research has itself become increasingly concerned with the study of firm — location interactions. When examining two-way knowledge flows or spillover...

This study investigates the China-located subsidiaries of foreign-owned multinational corporations (MNCs) for patterns of intra-firm and interorganizational technological knowledge accumulation. We analyze US patents attributed to those subsidiaries between 1996 and 2005 and argue that MNCs have recently tended toward open network structures, enabl...

This study focuses on the innovative performance implications of large MNCs' regional and global technological knowledge search strategies. In networked MNCs, the parent can still offer valuable knowledge to subsidiaries. The parent's and a subsidiary's knowledge becomes complementary if an MNC appropriately adopts a global strategy at the parent l...

We argue that a federative internal and loosely coupled external network of an multinational corporation (MNC) offer opportunities for recently-formed subsidiaries to become competence-creation nodes at an early stage of their development. By comparing technological knowledge inflow and outflow patterns of subsidiaries in China and counterparts in...

This study identifies two categories of exploration for competence creating subsidiaries of contemporary multinational corporations (MNCs). While subsidiary exploration (SE) brings in knowledge that is new to the subsidiary but not new to the MNC, corporate exploration (CE) draws upon knowledge that is new to the subsidiary and the MNC. We conceptu...

The amount and the nature of the innovative activity of multinational corporation (MNC) subunits have changed over time. Historically, subunits innovated mainly to adapt for local conditions products or processes developed in the home country of the MNC parent company. Thus, subunit creative activity in new fields little explored earlier by their p...

In this paper we investigate the productivity effects of technology seeking and exploiting FDI. Although the positive effects of technology exploiting FDI are fairly widely accepted, this is not the case for technology seeking FDI, due to its inherent "knowledge-absorbing" nature. Nonetheless, based on four arguments distilled from previous literat...

The chapter explores the long-run evolution of Italy's performance in technological innovation as a function of international technology transfer, reconstructing the different phases and dimensions of Italian innovative activity, tracking the transfer of foreign technological knowledge through a number of channels, analyzing the impact of imported...

Changes in the environment for international business activities have facilitated more open networked formations, both within and between firms. The spread of more open networks for innovation is increasingly blurring the boundaries between firms. Yet in contrast, more open relationships within large multinational corporations imply that some new b...

This study investigates the technological knowledge accumulation pattern of the world's largest firms in the electrical equipment (EE) industry. The study founds that a firm's ability to integrate technologically diversified knowledge and its ability to access geographically dispersed knowledge can, respectively, enhance the firm's performance. Yet...

This introductory chapter begins by discussing the theoretical and empirical context for the book before moving on to a brief consideration of changes in the policy environment to which innovative firms have been subject. In terms of the latter, particular attention is paid to the roles of foreign direct investment (FDI), trade, and market liberali...

This chapter begins by describing the evolution of foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, and the types of innovative firms in China. From a typology of the most significant forms of innovative Chinese enterprises, the special significance of the role of international joint ventures (IJVs) is explained. IJVs have been central to the connections...