Anran Mao, a Ph.D. student of the RITM supervised by Anne Plunket, will defend his Ph.D. thesis entitled “Innovation, Knowledge creation and Research Networks: evidence from Chinese MNEs”, on December 15, 2023.

The PhD defense will start at 9:30 AM in Room Gaudemet (Building D of the Faculty Jean Monnet).

Composition of the jury:

  • Fabrice Le Guel, Professeur à l’Université Paris-Saclay (RITM)
  • Nadine Massard, Professeure à l’Université de Grenoble
  • Julie Le Gallo, Professeure à l’Institut Agro Dijon
  • Lorenzo Cassi, MCF HDR à l’Université Paris 1
  • Muge Gossart Ozman, Professeure à IMTBS
PhD Thesis Abstract:

The main objective of this research is to investigate how multinational enterprises from emerging markets (EM MNEs) innovate by sourcing knowledge outside their geographical boundaries through research units and collaborations all over the world. The knowledge-sourcing and diffusion mechanism and their specific impact on the innovation outcome are studied through the role of overseas inventors and their relationships with home company inventors by focusing on Chinese MNEs. This thesis is composed of four chapters. The first chapter describes the construction of a patent database used in chapters 2 and 3. The database includes information on patents produced by a group of 51 Chinese MNEs, their technological characteristics, their inventors within the home company, and their foreign research units. The second chapter focuses on the respective influence of internal and external embeddedness of Chinese MNEs’ inventors on their innovation outcomes. The third chapter concentrates on the role of Chinese MNEs’ internal networks and specific inventors, namely gatekeepers, in the reverse knowledge transfer process and knowledge absorption. This chapter explores how gatekeepers contribute to new knowledge creation. The final chapter uses UPSTO patent data and investigates the local environment of Chinese MNEs’ overseas inventors and unboxes how knowledge stocks at different levels (metropolitan area, network, and firm) affect their innovation outcomes.