One of the most critical decisions to be made by internationalizing SMEs is the one that concerns foreign market entries, either direct or indirect, through intermediaries such as agents or distributors or by a firm's representative in the exporting/importing country, mainly a subsidiary. These represent various entry modes: (1) export entry modes, (2) contractual entry modes, and (3) investment entry modes or a combination of those modes. The article further elaborates on the network approach to these entry modes, as they will be considered nodes in various networks (relationships, positions, cooperative bonds, etc.). One criticism raised is it leaves out the digitalization aspects of entry nodes. The article, therefore, deals with the digital transformation of entry nodes as an agile and affordable way for SMEs to reach positions in different networks, e.g., in global factories. The article points to the fact that initiatives from the European Union, like the mandatory use of a Digital Product Passport, will lead many SMEs to use Artificial Intelligence (AI), which has rapidly progressed in recent years. In the article, we point to AI-augmented business process management systems (ABPMSs) as a candidate for piloting SMEs to enter networks in the future.

Globalization has become a pivotal term in the twenty-first century, attracting significant academic interest. However, how MNEs adjust their global strategies in response to dynamic environments like COVID-19 remains underexplored due to a lack of detailed data. This study uses social media data to examine the impact of COVID-19 on public opinion towards corporate globalization. By analyzing shifts in public opinion due to major global events, we can gain insights into the strategic adjustments MNEs might need. We analyzed tweets related to corporate globalization from 2018 to 2022, resulting in approximately 2.1 million tweets from 816,142 Twitter users. This large dataset helps us reliably estimate public opinion and increase the generalizability of our findings. We used a state-of-the-art machine learning technique (i.e., the fine-tuned Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers [BERT] algorithm) to analyze tweet sentiment and assess COVID-19's impact. We applied discontinuous growth modeling (DGM) to explore this impact further. Our findings reveal that the pandemic has had both immediate (intercept changes) and long-term (slope changes) effects on public opinion towards corporate globalization. We will share our dataset and machine learning R package, addressing the IB community's need for better data to study the micro foundations of MNEs’ strategic adjustments.

While research on reverse knowledge transfer (RKT) from subsidiaries to headquarters in multinational corporations (MNCs) has advanced extensively, its intersection with digitalization remains under-explored. This study aims to bridge this gap by investigating the impact of different forms of digital technology on RKT. We conceptualize digitalization as a multidimensional construct and look into its different dimensions. We hypothesize that different forms of digital technology (e.g., digital communication technology, digital networking technology) fluence differently, and that their impact is moderated by subsidiary local embeddedness. By focusing on Swedish MNCs, this study will contribute to the literature by providing a nuanced understanding of the relationship between digitalization, RKT, and subsidiary characteristics. Our findings will offer valuable insights for MNCs seeking to optimize knowledge transfer strategies in the digital age.

This submission addresses the question of whether the presence of universities affects the decision of MNEs’ managers when it comes to locate R&D subsidiaries abroad. To answer this question, an assessment of the “academic capacity and attractiveness” in pharmacy and pharmacology among 38 countries will be performed. This examination will be based on metrics associated to countries’ competitiveness such as FDI, exports, or even patent applications but also related to universities like their spending on R&D or the number of graduates. Subsequently, the analysis of Swiss pharmaceutical industry will have the objective of confirming or not the relevancy of universities when it comes to the location of foreign R&D subsidiaries. Based on research result, the United States, Germany, and to a lesser extend China, and the United Kingdom appear to be attractive for Swiss pharmaceutical firms. The probability of a foreign R&D center being in a country with high academic capacities emerged as high and the location of high-tier universities seems to play a major role in the attraction of foreign R&D centers inside countries.

The article aims to verify the development of innovation cooperation in the biopharmaceutical (biotech, pharma) industry in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) considering the directions of innovation cooperation. I will verify the importance of location in innovation cooperation in the biopharmaceutical industry in the CEE region, mainly if the frequency of cooperation within research and development (R & D) alliances with CEE partners is higher than with non-CEE partners.This is one of the first quantitative primary research articles in the world focused on innovation cooperation in the biopharmaceutical industry in the CEE region (covering 18 CEE countries), in the years 2015–2017. I conducted an online survey and collected data from January 2019 to March 2020 (a long-lasting process). The sampling procedure was non-random (purposeful selection with snowballing technique). To verify the directions of cooperation within R&D alliances in the biopharmaceutical industry, I investigated 241 R&D alliances between 107 companies from the CEE region in the years 2015–2017. The results show that the frequency of cooperation within R&D alliances with CEE partners was higher than with non-CEE partners (for selected partners and sectors).

This article examines the mechanism between gaining an R&D mandate and Profit from innovation. Initially, we explore the general assumption that gaining an R&D mandate provides subsidiaries with slack resources, enabling them to engage in both internal and external relationships to profit from innovations. After establishing the macro-level view link between gaining an R&D mandate, changes in the degree of relational embeddedness, and profit from innovation, we took a closer look and challenged this assumption. Our analysis reveals that there is no direct path between gaining an R&D mandate and profit from innovation. Instead, we demonstrate and argue that different forms of relational embeddedness contribute differently to different subsidiary performance measurements. Consequently, the presumed macro link does not hold.