AIB 2012 Conference Proceedings - Academy of International ...

SUNDAY
Panelists:
Nicholas Robinson, North Island College
Miroslaw Jarosinski, Warsaw School of Economics
Michel Librowicz, Université du Québec à Montréal
In this presentation we discuss the use of course-based export/import projects as an instructional device. In
such projects students investigate and report on export opportunities for real businesses as a major assignment
in a course. We give suggestions for recruiting suitable businesses, minimizing free rider problems in student
groups, and managing the relationship and communication among the project participants (businesses,
educational institutions, and students). Our recommendations are based on our experience with the
Interparse Project (International Trade Education in Partnership with Small and Medium Sized Enterprises) in
which a consortium comprised of 3 European and 3 Canadian institutions exchanged 65 students and
investigated export opportunities for 31 businesses between October 2007 and July 2011. (For more
information, please contact: Nicholas Robinson, North Island College, Canada: nick.robinson@nic.bc.ca)
Session: 1.5.11 - Interactive
Track: 6 - Innovation and Knowledge Mgmt.
Subsidiary Innovation Strategies
Presented On: July 1, 2012 - 16:15-17:30
Chair: Florian Täube, EBS Business School
Subsidiary Strategic Types and Functional Activities: The Importance of Knowledge in the Multinational's
Differentiated Network
Odile E. M. Janne, University of London-Birkbeck
Paz Estrella Tolentino, Birkbeck, University of London
Pi-Chi Chen, Birkbeck, University of London
This paper explores the increasing significance of knowledge creation and exploitation in the differentiation of
strategic roles of foreign subsidiaries and functional units within the differentiated network of the multinational
corporation (MNC). Developing a knowledge-augmented integration-responsiveness (IR) framework the paper
argues for a more explicit recognition of organisational learning and innovation processes within the MNC as
core to the analysis of differentiation, interdependencies and evolution of subsidiary types and functional units.
Empirical results, in the context of foreign subsidiaries and functional units of leading American MNCs in
Taiwan's IT industry, shows the increasing relevance and differentiation of knowledge transfers across foreign
subsidiaries and different kinds of functional activities. However, the composition and knowledge characteristics
of different functional activities in each subsidiary strategy type require a more specific and detailed analysis
that may reflect the particular features of this empirical study. This then points to directions of research fruitful
for reconciling organisational issues discussed in the international business literature with the resource-based
literature on the creation and transfer of knowledge within the MNC. (For more information, please contact:
Odile E. M. Janne, University of London-Birkbeck, United Kingdom: o.janne@bbk.ac.uk)
Evolution of Innovation Networks across Geographical and Organizational Boundaries: A Study of Subsidiaries
within Bangalore IT Cluster
Amit Karna, EBS Business School
Petra Sonderegger, Independent Researcher
Florian Täube, EBS Business School
AIB 2012 Conference Proceedings
Page 90