TMCD’s Xiaolan Fu, together with Zhongjuan Sun of the College of Business Administration, Capital University of Economics and Business, Beijing and Pervez N. Ghauri of Birmingham University’s Business School have published their research on ‘Reverse knowledge acquisition in emerging market MNEs: The experiences of Huawei and ZTE’ in the Journal of Business Research.

Based on case studies of leading Chinese MNEs' international operations in developed countries, their research developed a reverse knowledge acquisition model of emerging market MNEs through subsidiary-led reverse learning, knowledge sharing and integration processes.

This study unpacks MNEs' external learning process and contributes to the literature by exploring three mechanisms of learning, sharing and integration. It finds three reverse learning channels, a multi-level hub-spoke type of knowledge acquiring mechanism, and a two-tier three-step integration mechanism. The authors conclude that the learning mechanism confirms knowledge acquisition driven by reverse learning behaviours; the sharing mechanism enriches the community perspective of capability building and sharing; and the integration mechanism provides an effective way of knowledge integration within the MNEs.

Journal of Business Research is one of the top ranking journals in Business theory and research.

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