ABSTRACT

Digitisation has opened up powerful new ways for multinational enterprises (MNEs) to connect with global markets, resources and partners and to pursue innovation in foreign markets. While the unique characteristics of digital technologies and digital assets embody an expansive and promising global landscape for innovation, MNEs’ success in pursuing such digital innovation will also be shaped by the nature and extent of localization forces prevalent in different foreign markets, an issue that has received limited attention in both digital innovation and international business literatures. In this short essay, I highlight this gap and call for the study of digital innovation in the international business context by bringing together ideas, theories and concepts from both areas. I draw on and combine two perspectives—one drawn from the innovation literature (digital innovation as recombinant innovation involving digital assets) and the other from the international business literature (the international business context as being defined by national policies and regulations, infrastructure and culture) and suggest several promising themes and questions for future research in this area, specifically relating to how globalization/localization forces facilitate/hinder MNEs’ global digital innovation efforts. I hope the call made here will be answered by scholars from both fields and lead to insights that enrich both theory and practice related to MNE innovation in today’s rapidly growing digital economy.

摘要

数字化为跨国企业 (MNEs) 连接全球市场、资源和合作伙伴以及在国外市场寻求创新开辟了强大的新途径。虽然数字技术和数字资产的独特特征体现了广阔而充满希望的全球创新格局，但跨国公司在追求数字创新方面的成功也将受到不同国外市场普遍存在的本地化力量的性质和程度的影响，这一问题已经在数字创新和国际商业文献中受到的关注有限。在这篇短文中，我强调了这一差距，并呼吁通过汇集两个领域的想法、理论和概念来研究国际商业背景下的数字创新。我借鉴并结合了两个观点——一个来自创新文献（数字创新是涉及数字资产的重组创新），另一个来自国际商业文献（国际商业环境由国家政策和法规、基础设施和文化定义）并为该领域的未来研究提出几个有希望的主题和问题，特别是与全球化/本地化力量如何促进/阻碍跨国公司的全球数字创新努力有关。我希望这两个领域的学者都能回应这里的呼吁，并带来丰富的见解，丰富与当今快速发展的数字经济中的跨国公司创新相关的理论和实践。