臺大管理論叢 NTU Management Review VOL.29 NO.1

Choose Foreign R&D Partners From Right Pools: A Synthesis Framework 98 2. Literature Review and Hypotheses 2.1 Strategic Motives of Foreign Entry Firms entering foreign countries are driven by various motives. For instance, Peter and Pervez (1994) posits that firms undertake foreign entries for selling products/services or obtaining resources, e.g., lower-cost labors, natural assets, or trade quotas; Beamish (1987) suggests that firms go overseas for acquiring technologies, learning managerial skills, or accessing international markets; Hitt, Dacin, Levitas, Arregle, and Borza (2000) argue that firms from emerging and developed economies will seek different accesses to multiple forms of technological capabilities; Dong and Glaister (2006) highlight from the perspectives of Chinese firms that the motive of foreign entry is to exchange complementary technologies and share R&D costs; Santangelo and Meyer (2011) propose two strategic motives: one is competence-creating that is for accessing skills and control over strategic assets, and the other is non-competence-creating that is for accessing market or cheap labors, and improvement of efficiency; Chang, Lee, Chieng, and Chin (2013) posit that a firm’s foreign entry is associated with the market attraction, technology, and institutions of host countries as well as its growth strategy. Accordingly, we reviewed the highly cited literature that examined the strategic motives of foreign entry directly or indirectly, and made a summary as shown in Table 1. Five kinds of the foreign entry motive can be specified: (1) market-seeking, (2) resource-seeking, (3) technology-seeking, (4) client-following, and (5) mutual-forbearing. Figure 1 Synthesis Framework of Foreign R&D Partner Selection Local Institutional Context • Institutional voids Strategic Motives • Market expansion • Technology acquisition Learning Strategies • Exploitation • Exploration Foreign R&D Partner Selection • Internal Stakeholders • External Stakeholders