There is an increased need of understanding organizational and institutional underpinnings of firms’ global knowledge search. This paper addresses thick and diversified RIS in two different territorial contexts and explores firms’ use of physical and virtual space in their search of innovation relevant knowledge. Through interviews with ICT and new media SMEs from Scandinavia (Oslo, Malmö) and Beijing, findings show that low-cost and virtual search space is very important for innovation; furthermore, regional, global and virtual space co-evolve and mutually reinforce each other. Global search strategies differ between the two contexts, emphasizing the importance of a regional institutional-organizational framing supporting trust, collaboration and motivation for global search. In order to reap the benefits of the regional-global-virtual dynamics, being thick and diversified is not enough to have global reach and attractiveness.

Housing renovation is a common concern to owners, tenants and to society at large. In addition to the high economic costs, the implementation of housing renovation usually have a long-term impact on the society and the built environment. This is a theoretical paper that develops a system model for understanding sustainable housing renovation as a system phenomenon which has multiple sustainability goals, complicated dynamic processes, diverse actors, and a sophisticated institutional environment. It identifies the key challenges of a sustainable housing renovation system, namely the conflicting sustainability goals and the conflicting stakeholder interests. To address these two challenges, the paper suggests an innovation approach in which the process of innovation (linear versus organic) and the typology of innovation (product versus process and business versus social) toward sustainable housing renovation are discussed.

Stakeholder management is an important task for project managers in housing renovation. Compared with new construction project, a great challenge is managing the tenants living onsite before or during the renovation. This paper is a teaching case based on a real-life housing renovation of a Swedish real estate company between 2009 to 2016. The project confronted difficult stakeholder management problems. The case provides teaching materials that can be used by instructors for helping students and trainees to analyse and summarise the lessons learned from a troublesome stakeholder management process and to come up with suggestions that will ensure a smooth implementation of the housing renovation project. The case contains two main parts, namely the case description and teaching notes. It can be used by teachers and trainers, as well as university bachelor students and industrial practitioners in courses and training programs about real estate project management.

Housing renovation, in contrast to new construction projects, has to take good care of the tenants who are already living in the building. What are the theoretical and practical implications concerning the transformation from a technology-and-engineering-focused renovation approach to a more user-oriented one? What are the mechanisms of strategy change? Based on our case we argue that the mechanisms of strategy change are based on the interplay between external disturbance and internal renewal. External disturbance is the trigger of strategy change, but it does not, in itself, necessarily lead to strategy change, and particularly not for an innovative new strategy. The internal new competence is the source of changing from an old strategy to an innovative new strategy. The real estate industry needs to undergo a transformation from the rationalistic technology- and engineering-focused renovation model (TEF model) to a more inclusive approach. We suggest a user-oriented model (UO model) where user involvement is seen as integrated in the whole process of renovation.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to contextually theorise the different patterns of emerging multinational companies’ (EMNCs’) learning processes for innovation and the different influences of their technology-driven FDIs (TFDIs) on the processes. Design/methodology/approach – A comparative case study method and process tracing technique are employed to investigate how and why firms’ learning processes for innovation took place, how and why the TFDIs emerged and influenced the firms’ learning processes in different ways. Findings – The paper identifies two different patterns of learning process for innovation (Glider model vs Helicopter model) and two different roles of the case firms’ TFDIs (accelerator vs starter) in the different contexts of their learning processes. It is found that the capability building of the domestic wind energy industry has an important influence on the case of EMNCs’ learning processes and thus on the roles of their TFDIs. Research limitations/implications – The limitation of the paper lies in its small number of cases in a specific industry of a specific country. The two contextually identified learning models and roles of TFDIs may not be applied to other industries or other countries. Future research should investigate more cases in broader sectoral and geographic scope to test the models and also to identify new models. Practical implications – For EMNCs, who wants to use the Helicopter model to rapidly gain production and innovation capability, cross-cultural management and integration management are crucial to practitioners. For emerging countries with ambitions to explore the global knowledge and technology pool, besides of the EMNC’s capability building, the capability building in the domestic industries should not be overlooked by policy makers. Originality/value – The paper develops a dynamic and contextual analytical framework which helps to answer the important questions about how and under what context a TFDI emerges and influences firm’s learning process for innovation. It theorises the EMNCs’ learning process and TFDIs in the context of the development of the domestic industry. It strengthens the explanatory power of the learning-based view and adds new knowledge to the current FSA/CSA discourse in the international business literature. Keywords China, Europe, Emerging market multinationals, Foreign direct investment (FDI), Technological innovation, Wind energy

The paper explores the factors driving Outward Foreign Direct Investment (OFDI) by Emerging multinational enterprisess (EMNEs) and the patterns of knowledge transfer in six cases of EMNEs from three BRICS’ economies (India, China and South Africa). It found that there are significant differences between the OFDI from EMNEs and Developed multinational enterprise (DMNEs), which cannot be explained by using traditional FDI models. The way that EMNEs enter and operate in developed and developing countries are different. Knowledge transfers between EMNEs and developing host economies are predominantly one way and the former transfers more technology and knowledge than they gain. In the case of EMNEs and developed host economies, the knowledge and technology transfers appears to be more evenly matched, a two-way street benefitting both parties. The paper makes two major contributions: (i) it attempts to identify and distinguish the factors driving OFDI and patterns of knowledge transfer of OFDI from EMNEs and shows how they differ from DMNEs; (ii) it highlights aspects of OFDI by EMNEs such as expansion into countries outside their respective regions, and different patterns of technology and knowledge transfer in the South and North respectively.

Today’s developments in the literature about the global networks of firms emphasize not only global production networks (GPNs) but also global innovation networks (GINs). However, the differences, commonalities and interaction between firms’ GINs and GPNs have not been theoretically and empirically clarified. Using case studies and social network analysis, this paper aims to capture the network characteristics of two case study firms’ GINs and GPNs. The findings show that these firms’ GINs and GPNs interact and are different in terms of network composition and network centralization, but are similar in terms of pattern of ties. Despite this, the GIN-GPN interaction, differences and commonality of one firm clearly differ from that of the other. The paper argues that theoretically considering the GIN and GPN as two different but interwoven layers of a firm’s global value creation network may provide better conceptual clarity for understanding management issues in the context of globalization. In addition, this paper discusses management implications for simultaneously managing firms’ globalization strategy for innovation and production as well as the theoretical implication for international business and globalization studies. It also suggests a knowledge base perspective for future research to understand better the dynamics of firms’ GINs and GPNs.

This article is an in-depth comparative case study of six leading manufacturing firms in the Great Zurich region of Switzerland and the Sichuan province of China. It employs innovation system approach, institutional thickness framework and social network analysis to investigate the regional institutions of the two regions and their impact on the connectedness of the case firms’ internal and external innovation networks. Findings show the impact of regional institutions on the connectedness of the case firms’ innovation networks is mainly manifested in the connections among the case firms’ outside collaborators rather than the direct relations of and within the case firms. The paper opens the black box of firm’s innovation networks and compares different dynamics of firms’ internal and external networks. It argues that firms can build up dense direct network relations for innovation by leveraging their endogenous capabilities even in a thin regional institutional environment. As for promoting collaboration among outsiders for the focal firm’s innovation, regional institutions play a bigger role than the firm’s endogenous capabilities. The paper provides regional policy implications particularly for developing and emerging countries with transitional institutional environment.