Multistep Knowledge Transfer in Multinational Corporation Networks: When Do Subsidiaries Benefit From Unconnected Sister Alliances?

In this paper, we explore under which conditions subsidiaries of multinational corporations can benefit from the external networks of sister subsidiaries in terms of new knowledge generation. We focus on the phenomenon of unconnected sister alliances—that is, alliances of sister subsidiaries with whom the focal subsidiary lacks a recent history of internal R&D collaboration. Whereas unconnected sister alliances provide knowledge...