Innovation in and from emerging economies: New insights and lessons for international business research

This article argues that innovation in and from emerging economies is largely shaped by the challenges of sustained catching-up with the advanced economies. Just as firms and industries are constantly seeking to upgrade their technological and organizational capabilities, so too are their societies reconfiguring their institutions and networks to improve their knowledge resources. Such a co-evolutionary process requires IB scholars to draw on interdisciplinary work from the innovation and development literature in order to reconsider the key drivers of innovation at multiple levels within these economies. Innovation is not just limited to technological activities but includes organizational and transactional improvements, and is largely a process of recombination of local and imported knowledge, shared through multiple forms of collaboration. This can redefine the FSAs of local and foreign firms, often shaped by the strategies of domestic public and private actors. Simultaneously, policymakers need to develop the appropriate institutions needed to underpin R&D, training, standards, and knowledge coordination. MNEs play unique roles as instigators of innovation, as conduits for new knowledge, and as beneficiaries themselves, via their own recombination capabilities.