Seminar （Dept. of Trade Economics）

Theme：It’s a Small World: An Internal Network Perspective on Protecting Intellectual Property in Foreign Subsidiaries

Speaker：Prof. JT Li (HKUST)

Time：2021-06-09 09:00

Address：Tencent Meeting

Language：Chinese/English

Venue: Tencent Meeting https://meeting.tencent.com/s/s9cEGs92GCAq 

ID：489 476 567

Abstract:

This study examines firm internal network structures as a defense of intellectual property rights (IPR) in high-risk environments with inadequate IPR protection. Specifically, we investigate firm social and knowledge-based network structures individually. A foreign subsidiary can intensify social complexity by strengthening the small-worldness in its collaboration networks and attenuate knowledge relatedness by decreasing the small-worldness in its knowledge networks. In a subsidiary, the effectiveness of these measures depends on the parent firm’s experience in the host country to some extent. Longitudinal data on 401 foreign subsidiaries in the pharmaceutical industry from 1980 to 2017 are analyzed in a quasi-experiment using difference-in-differences and two-stage regression. The results provide empirical support for these ideas. Findings highlight the explanatory power of internal network structures when discussing knowledge protection and show the utility of taking an internal network defense perspective in examining IPR protection.