Two main themes emerge from the collection of articles published in this issue of MOR. One is related to innovation, and the other is about China and India's distinct approaches to global business.
While innovation has been studied extensively in management research, scant attention has been paid to how subsidiary TMT (top management team) attention to group networks versus external networks influences subsidiary innovation, or how different patterns of local knowledge spillover can be leveraged to increase service innovation for international firms. The authors of this issue not only theorize about the embedded agency of TMT in state-owned enterprises across multilevel institutional contexts (Butzbch, Fuller, Schnyder, & Svystunova, 2022), but also identify the role of subsidiary autonomy in enhancing the effect of TMT attention to different networks on subsidiary innovation (Wang, Zhang, & Shang, 2022). In addition, Ngo and Thornton (2022) find that different configurations of local knowledge spillover channels in conjunction with absorptive capacity can increase international firms’ service innovation.
Since China became the largest economy in the world in 2014, India has made great strides in recent years to globalize its business. In comparing firm internationalization of these two countries, Huang, Conde, Cui, and Fu (2022) examined the extent to which Indian firms’ strategic asset-seeking, opportunity-seeking, and market-seeking motives apply to Chinese firms, and found several key differences in absorptive capacity, international expansion scales and patterns, ownership type, and the home institutional contexts. In comparing FDI in Africa from China and India, Xie, Chen, and Wang (2022) propose that the two emerging giants compete on different bases: China relying on government-to-government relationship building whereas India relies on the advantage of institutional proximity and large diaspora communities in Africa. Meyer (2022) further illustrates their different approaches by focusing on the historical roots, the government role, and the nature of projects in the business globalization of these two countries. He even states that ‘the “rivalry” between India and China on the global stage is much ado about nothing’.
I truly hope you enjoy reading the articles in this issue!
