Seminar（Dept. of Trade Economics）

Title:The Signaling Role of Patenting in a Host Country

Speaker:Jiatao Li (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology)

Time:14:00-15:30pm, October19th, 2023 (Thursday)

Venue:Room 1008, Mingde Business Building

Language:English

ABSTRACT：

The current increasing volatility in international business makes it more important to understand how multinational enterprises respond to international relationships between host and home countries. This paper explains the impact of macro-level bilateral political relation on micro-level strategy of multinationals in the host country. We argued the idea that patenting may be used to signal a firm’s commitment and contribution to the host country’s economy and development. Data on 437 large multinationals and interviews with senior managers of 20 foreign subsidiaries in China show that patenting local innovation does indeed help an investing firm signal its usefulness to the host country government. It can thus serve as a response to bilateral political relation.