MIB in-person seminar with Professor Carlos Sousa

 Professor Sousa talks about his paper, Divestment of IJVs: Does it really matter for firms’ innovation activities?

 Abstract: 

In emerging markets, international joint venture (IJV) is becoming a particularly important vehicle for local firms to gain innovation competence through learning from foreign firms. IJVs learn through integrating IJV partners’ knowledge and develop IJV-specific knowledge, insights, and abilities that are fundamental to their innovation capacity. However, IJVs are relatively unstable and 80 percent of IJVs ultimately end in a sale by one of the partners. When foreign parents leave, divested IJVs will lose access to foreign parents’ advanced knowledge. This study examines the impact of foreign divestments of IJVs on innovation output. It also explores the different moderating effects of inward technology licensing by differentiating between licensing-in foreign and domestic technology. The conceptual model was tested with data from the Chinese Industrial Enterprise Database and the Innovative Enterprise Database. The findings show that (1) foreign divestments of IJVs have negative impacts on innovation output; (2) licensing-in foreign technology plays a positive moderating role; and (3) licensing-in domestic technology has a negative moderating impact on foreign divestment-innovation output relationship.

Bio: 

Carlos M. P. Sousa is Full Professor of Marketing and Business Strategy at Molde University College in Norway. He received his Ph.D. from University College Dublin (Ireland). Carlos is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Business Research and Associate Editor of International Marketing Review. He has been a visiting professor at universities in Australia, Brazil, Chile, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and the UK. Carlos has published over 70 articles, in journals such as Research Policy, Journal of Product Innovation Management, Journal of International Marketing, Journal of World Business, Global Strategy Journal, and British Journal of Management. In March 2021, Professor Sousa was awarded the 2021 Hans B. Thorelli Award by the American Marketing Association 

The schedule (Room 223):

1000-1100: Prof Sousa’s presentation (topic and abstract see below)

1100-1200: Networking session

1400-1530: PhD presentation and feedback