John H Dunning Centre Projects
Current and future research projects:
Professor John Cantwell's research covers the following themes:
- The geographical pattern of technological knowledge sourcing by subsidiaries, and how this relates to the increasing complexity of the technological structure of knowledge sourcing (multi-technology combinations).
- The influence of the interaction between subsidiaries and local networks on the location of competence-creating and competence-exploiting types of technological development efforts within the international networks of multinational companies.
- The regional (intra-country) distribution of innovative activities and industrial leadership in the UK in historical context.
- Technological diversification in Japanese multinational companies.
- The role of international business in processes of technological catch up, with special reference to East Asia.
- The historical evolution of corporate technological diversification in the world's largest firms.
Dr Evelyn Fenton is currently coming to the end of a collaboration on a CIPD funded research project 2001-2005 with Richard Whittington and Eamonn Malloy (Said Business School), Michael Meyer (Edinburgh University Business School) and Anne Smith (Open University Business School) on Organising for Success which has examined large scale organisational restructuring programmes in the UK.
She is currently discussing a proposal for funding from EPSRC with Janet Harvey (Leicester University) on managerial thinking and practice of knowledge management in professional services in the private and public sector, to submit early 2006. She is in the process of writing a paper on the development of a knowledge management strategy and systems in a global professional engineering firm.
Dr Michael Mol will continue to pursue his research agenda around outsourcing and management innovation. He is in the process of writing a book on outsourcing for Cambridge University Press and has several working papers and pending journal submissions on the topic as well. With Julian Birkinshaw (London Business School) and Gary Hamel (Woodside Institute) Michael is now also submitting three papers to major journals in the management area as well as continuing to work on further papers. With Birkinshaw and Hamel he is also in the process of setting up a "management innovation laboratory" at London Business School. The University of Reading already has a similar lab in place. In these labs he intends to engage in quasi-experimental research on management innovation.
Professor Rajneesh Narula is currently working on a series of papers relating to the role of MNEs in developing countries, and the limits of FDI-assisted economic development. In addition, he is collaborating with the OECD on a study of embeddedness of FDI in the Leningrad Region of Russia. He is also working with Marina Della Guista and Uma Khambapati of CIP on a study of responses to economic liberalization in India. In collaboration with Gabriel Benito of the Norwegian school of Management, he is also editing a volume on Multinational in the Periphery.
Dr Stephen Pavelin is currently working on two ongoing research projects in International Business. The first investigates the motives of firms underlying foreign direct investment (FDI) behaviour. Of particular interest are those motives that may derive from the interdependencies between firms' actions. Such strategic motives for FDI are generated by an associated influence on the behaviour of rival firms that advantages the investing firm. This project is carried out in collaboration with Dermot Leahy (University College Dublin). The second project relates to corporate social performance (CSP), and particularly the effect on CSP exerted by the geographical diversification of a firm’s operations. This project is carried out in collaboration with Lynda Porter (University of Reading) and Stephen Brammer (University of Bath). As well as continuing that ongoing research agenda, future work is expected to include an externally-funded research project that seeks to investigate the extent and determinants of R&D activities in the Thames Valley region of the UK. That project, in collaboration with Lynda Porter and Zella King (University of Reading), would focus upon the factors that influence the innovatory activities of the large multinational companies currently present in that region.
Professor Bob Pearce is currently working on an analysis of Greek outward FDI with emphasis on the emergence of Greek MNEs and their strategic aims, with M. Papanastassiou and others to be completed during 2006. He is also working on a comparative study of MNE operations in Greece and UK with M. Papanastassiou, F. Filippaios, C. Kottaridi, to be completed early 2007. A third project is a study of global R&D in the food and drink sector, with M. Papanastassiou, F. Filippaios, R. Rama, to be completed 2006.
Beyond this, the main commitment is the completion of two books (all currently in process):
(i) "Multinationals in the New Global Economy" (Elgar, completion 2006).
(ii) "Theory and Analysis of the Multinational Enterprise" (Elgar, completion 2007).
Dr Lynda Porter is currently working on two ongoing research projects in International Business. The first investigates corporate tax competition between governments in order to attract foreign direct investment (FDI). Of particular interest are the interdependencies between governments' actions. The second project relates to corporate social performance (CSP), and particularly the effect on CSP exerted by the geographical diversification of a firm's operations. This project is carried out in collaboration with Stephen Pavelin (University of Reading) and Stephen Brammer (University of Bath). As well as continuing that ongoing research agenda, future work is expected to include an externally-funded research project that seeks to investigate the extent and determinants of R&D activities in the Thames Valley region of the UK. That project, in collaboration with Lynda Porter and Zella King (University of Reading), would focus upon the factors that influence the innovatory activities of the large multinational companies currently present in that region.
Dr Denise Tsang's latest research was on high tech entrepreneurial firms, sponsored by the British Academy. She will start her project concerning the growth of UK games software firms next year; she has applied for 2 years' research funding from the Leverhulme Trust in relation to the research and is waiting for the decision. Her next project will focus on the Zheijiang province of China, which is characterized by the booming private sectors of high technology as well as labour intensive industries. Dr Tsang's first book was Business Strategy and National Culture and her forthcoming second book is The Entrepreneurial Culture.
