How is internationalised R&D influencing firms' technological innovation: empirical results from China

In today's fiercely competitive global market, developing new technologies is becoming ever more important for firm to stay competitive. Internationalised R&D is especially attractive to firms in developing countries who tend to lack exposure to advanced technologies. A series of studies found that firms who undertake internationalised R&D are more profitable, and some claimed that, overall, it increases patent output. Yet rarely have we studied how the different aspects of internationalised R&D influence technological innovation output. Fewer studies still have paid attention to internationalised R&D in China as the world's largest developing economy and a significant international competitor. Therefore, we conducted a study on the relationship between key components of internationalised R&D and technological innovation output in listed Chinese multinationals. From a literature review and cross-case analysis of four Chinese tech giants, we established network construction and knowledge acquisition as key processes in internationalised R&D, and technological and geographic diversity as key characteristics. We then defined a regression model and metrics and analysed a sample of 40 listed Chinese firms to determine how those characteristics relate and interrelate to the number of international patents held by each firm. The results show positive correlations for all hypothesis tests.