The Absorptive Capacity of IJVs’ Home Parent Companies in China: A Theoretical Framework

摘要

The number of IJVs (international joint ventures) has being increased substantially in the past decades with the global expansion of multinational enterprises. And the flow-transferring and acquisition-of knowledge has become an important cause leading to such rapid development. Home and foreign parent companies learn and seek the needed knowledge from each other and it is the very necessary condition for the cooperation strategic goal of IJV programs. Absorptive capacity is the ability of enterprises to value, acquire, transform and exploit external knowledge. Based on an extensive literature review and specific consideration of China’s transitional context, this paper proposed a theoretical framework on the absorptive capacity of IJVs’ home parent companies. A two-phase model was suggested to link the absorptive capacity, the knowledge acquired from the foreign partners and the home companies’ performance altogether, and factors influencing and hindering the knowledge acquisition process from the perspective of home parent companies were examined. A further empirical study design was also proposed in the end.