Learning Through Firms’ Overseas Subsidiaries in the United States and China: Linking Host Country Environments into Technological Learning Outcome Types

How does technological learning through overseas subsidiaries differ across advanced economies, like the United States, and emerging economies, like China? We examine divergent host country environments (e.g. China and the United States) as critical contingencies that influence technological learning outcomes of Korean firms using patent data. Our findings suggest that the higher the number of overseas subsidiaries established in China leads to an increase in the usage of existing host country technological knowledge, while the higher the number of overseas subsidiaries established in the United States increases new technological knowledge co-production with host country researchers. Our research yields incipient findings that offer critical insights for firms seeking specific technological learning outcomes from host countries.