Technological complexity and the creation of impactful technologies: The role of inventors' international diversity and expertise

Mario Kafouros, Eva Mavroudi, Murod Aliyev and Junjie Hong

Journal of International Management, 2025, vol. 31, issue 3

Abstract: Given that highly impactful technologies can generate immense value and build competitive advantages for MNEs, it is crucial to understand how they can successfully create them. This study's overarching contribution lies in explaining how MNEs can assemble inventor teams and optimize their composition to overcome the challenges of technological complexity and create highly impactful technologies. Analyzing a sample of 2.3 million technologies created by 183,833 firms across 139 countries, the study reveals that MNEs with teams that are internationally diverse (multi-country) and possess greater technological expertise are better equipped to leverage complex knowledge in technology creation. Importantly, it also indicates that while international diversity is less effective in making teams more innovative across all levels of complexity, its value lies in delaying the point at which extreme complexity hinders technology creation. In contrast, technological expertise helps team create more impactful technologies at any level of complexity but is less effective in postponing the point where extreme complexity becomes overwhelming. These insights underscore that international diversity and technological expertise are complementary, supporting MNE teams in distinct but synergistic ways.

Keywords: International diversity; Technological complexity; Team expertise; Innovation; Knowledge recombination (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1075425325000171
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:intman:v:31:y:2025:i:3:s1075425325000171

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/601266/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 601266/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.intman.2025.101239

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of International Management is currently edited by M. Kotabe

More articles in Journal of International Management from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().