Right person in the right place: How the host country IPR influences the distribution of inventors in offshore R&D projects of multinational enterprises

By Anand Nandkumar, Kannan Srikanth
Strategic Management Journal | August 2016

DOI

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/enhanced/doi/10.1002/smj.2418

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Citation

Nandkumar, Anand., Srikanth, Kannan. (2015). Right person in the right place: How the host country IPR influences the distribution of inventors in offshore R&D projects of multinational enterprises Strategic Management Journal http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/enhanced/doi/10.1002/smj.2418.

Strategic Management Journal, 2015

Abstract

Prior work has shown that the strength of the intellectual property regime (IPR) in a host country influences offshoring of R&D to that country. Building on this work we propose that the strength of the IPR in a host country differentially influences the threat of knowledge leakage on projects that are produced for the location where the multinational firm is headquartered (home) versus the location to which the R&D project is offshored (host). We argue and show that when the host location has a weak IPR, fewer host inventors are involved in host R&D projects when compared to home R&D projects. We test our hypotheses using a dataset of patents held by US assignees, but co-invented in 43 host locations with differing IPR strength.

Anand Nandkumar is an Associate Professor of Strategy, Executive Director of SRITNE at the Indian School of Business (ISB), and Associate Dean of the Centre for Learning and Teaching Excellence. He explores industry and firm-level phenomena that influence innovation - the generation of new ideas, and entrepreneurship - distribution and commercialisation of new ideas. His research focuses on high-technology industries such as pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, and software, and it falls in between industrial organisation (IO), economics of technological change, and strategy.

Professor Nandkumar’s current work in the innovation stream examines the effect of stronger intellectual property rights (IPR) on different aspects of innovation, such as the influence of stronger patents on long run incentives for innovation or the influence of stronger patents on the functioning of Markets for Technology (MFT). In the entrepreneurship stream, his current work examines the influence of venture capitalists on entrepreneurial performance.

Professor Nandkumar graduated with a PhD in Public Policy and Management, with a focus in strategy and entrepreneurship from Carnegie Mellon University in 2008. Prior to his PhD, he worked for 3 years with a startup in Silicon Valley, and prior to that, in New York City with one of the world’s largest financial services firms.

True to his expertise, at ISB, Professor Nandkumar teaches Strategic Innovation Management and Strategic Challenges for Innovation-based startups.

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