Author: Xianming Wu, Maoqiong Wang, Victor Cui

Abstract: As emerging market enterprises (EMEs) shift from passive foreign capital acquisition to proactive “going global” strategies, do their outbound cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As) stimulate innovation? By analyzing China’s M&A data from 2007 to 2020, we explore firms’ total R&D, exploitative R&D, and exploratory R&D. Employing difference-in-differences (DID) and propensity score matching (PSM) methodologies, our findings indicate that, compared to inbound cross-border M&As, proactive outbound cross-border M&As promote firms’ exploitative R&D but inhibit total and exploratory R&D. EMEs engaged in outbound and inbound cross-border M&As exhibit distinct R&D orientations. The effects of outbound cross-border M&As on firms’ R&D are moderated differently by government subsidies and the intensity of regional intellectual property protection. Further analysis underscores the advantages of participating in cross-border M&As (firms as acquirers and targets) over domestic M&As. Moreover, outbound cross-border M&As increase firms’ substantial innovation outputs. Our study further proves that what drives the results is not solely the international dimension of M&As; proactive engagement in outbound cross-border M&As holds greater significance.

Keywords: Outbound cross-border M&As; Inbound cross-border M&As; Exploitative R&D; Exploratory R&D; Emerging market enterprise; Institutional process

The article was published online in May 2024 in the "Journal of International Management," which is a Level B+ reward journal in the academic journal ranking scheme of the Economics and Management School of Wuhan University. Maoqiong Wang is a doctoral student in the Department of Business Administration at the Economics and Management School of Wuhan University, enrolled in the year 2021.

Link: https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1j3h1_OSyoSIEa