Tapping the power of local knowledge: A local-global interactive perspective

Shenxue Li, Mark Easterby-Smith, Marjorie A. Lyles and Timothy Clark

Journal of World Business, 2016, vol. 51, issue 4, 641-653

Abstract: Existing theories of international business and strategy do not fully explain how local knowledge disadvantage faced by foreign investors can be mitigated. We conducted an in-depth qualitative study into four MNCs to investigate the micro-processes of how they generated value from their dispersed sources of local knowledge in China. The results suggest an interactive model: that MNCs employed management processes encompassing three strategically interconnected efforts—global knowledge penetration, local-global knowledge blending, and local-global knowledge integration. The model highlights the interplay between global and local knowledge and challenges extant research that solely focuses on the transfer of either home-based or local knowledge.

Keywords: Local knowledge; Local knowledge disadvantage; Local-global knowledge interaction; Qualitative study; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

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DOI: 10.1016/j.jwb.2016.04.001

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