Overseas M&A integration and industrial innovation: a study based on internal and external knowledge network reconfiguration

Promoting home-country industrial innovation via overseas mergers and acquisitions (M&A) integration is crucial for latecomers. However, the transmission mechanism for innovation remains unclear. Taking the resource-based view, we apply network theory to illustrate this cross-level process. Based on technology-sourcing overseas M&A samples in China, a mediating effect model shows that with a lower resource similarity level, a higher resource complementarity level and a lower external network embeddedness, the acquirer should choose a lower integration degree to improve internal and external knowledge-network reconfiguration, thus benefiting home-country industrial innovation. Our findings help enrich overseas M&A research on enterprise’s dual-network embeddedness and help latecomers catch up.