PhD defence: Leveraging the International Context: Essays on Building Offshoring Capabilities and Enhancing Firm Innovation
In her dissertation ‘Leveraging the International Context: Essays on Building Offshoring Capabilities and Enhancing Firm Innovation’ ERIM’s Mashiho Mihalache explores how firms can take advantage of the opportunities available in the international environment. The research acknowledges the difficulties many firms face in trying to navigate the international context and tries to help firms overcome them. Mashito first develops a decisional framework that considers the different factors firms need to consider when deciding what business activities to perform abroad, where to locate the activities, and then how to manage them. In addition, the dissertation informs how firms can learn from current activities to develop capabilities for the international context. Lastly, the dissertation focuses on how firms can use the international context to increase their innovation. In short, the studies of this dissertation help firms make the right decisions regarding their foreign operation in order to be able to use foreign opportunities to increase their innovation.
Mashiho Mihalache defended her dissertation in the Senate Hall at Erasmus University Rotterdam on Thursday, 1 October 2015 at 11:30. Her supervisor was <link people jan-van-den-ende>Professor Jan van den Ende . Other members of the Doctoral Committee were <link people henk-volberda>Professor Henk Volberda (ERIM), Professor Hans van Kranenburg (Radboud Universiteit), and Professor Jose C. Principe (University of Florida).
About Mashiho Mihalache
Mashiho Mihalache was born in Naha, Japan. She obtained her Bachelor’s Degree in Economics and Political Science from University of Toronto, Canada. After graduation, she continued her studies at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University Rotterdam where she obtained the MPhil Degree.
In 2011, Mashiho joined the Technology & Operations Management Department of Rotterdam School of Management (RSM), Erasmus University, as a PhD candidate. Her research focuses on how firms can leverage the international context in order to improve their innovation performance. This includes topics such as how firms make decisions for their foreign operations, how to develop appropriate capabilities, and how to organize in order to be able to access foreign resources. Mashiho presented her research at major international conferences such as the Academy of Management, Strategic Management Society, European Academy of Management, and European Group for Organizational Studies.
Following her PhD, Mashiho will be joining NEOMA Business School, France as an Assistant Professor in Strategic Management.
Thesis Abstract
The increased globalization of the last decades created a business environment in which firms are exposed to foreign competition but also to important foreign opportunities. However, while many opportunities exist abroad, capitalizing on these opportunities is not straightforward. This dissertation advances the understanding of how firms can leverage the international environment, especially for increasing innovation.
For this purpose, this dissertation contains four research studies asking complementary research questions. In the first study, I perform a systematic review of offshoring research to develop a decisional framework that integrates insights on the factors that inform the key decisions firms make when offshoring and to suggest avenues for future research. The second study shows how firms can build offshoring capabilities in order to benefit from foreign operations. Employing a qualitative methodology, I uncovered what an offshoring capability consists of and how firms can develop it. In the remaining studies, I address the more specific question of how firm can use international opportunities to increase their ability to innovate. To this end, the third study puts forward theoretical proposition suggesting firms can use offshoring to innovate, but this depends on the top management team processes and the degree of integration with foreign activities. The fourth study take a large-scale quantitative approach to find that the degree of international diversification affects firms’ ability to innovate and that different elements of international diversification are interrelated in their influence on innovation. Overall, this dissertation finds that firms can use international opportunities to increase their innovation.
· View and download Mashiho's dissertation
Photos: Chris Gorzeman / Capital Images
