We draw upon organizational learning theory to argue that industry offshoring intensity provides knowledge reservoirs for firms to learn about foreign markets. However, learning about foreign markets from other firms’ cross-border input activities is challenging, and a knowledge reservoir embedded in an industry may not be immediately utilizable by all firms. We posit that realizing such external learning opportunities hinges on complementarities facilitated by internationalization-specific experience and general absorptive capacities. Industry offshoring intensity has no effect on the internationalization likelihood of firms lacking foreign market experience. Their absence of internationalization-specific knowledge erects barriers to realizing external learning opportunities unless they possess a general absorptive capacity that supports assimilating insights from new domains, enabling complementarities with the knowledge reservoir. By comparison, firms with foreign market experience can more readily leverage the knowledge reservoirs, increasing the extent of their internationalization. Complementarities between experiential and external knowledge enable this effect. Data from 5,745 United States firms in 56 industries (1997 to 2019) support these arguments. This study offers industry offshoring as a novel internationalization determinant underpinned by a knowledge reservoir stemming from peers’ activities. It also highlights the complementarities between experiential and non-experiential learning forms and absorptive capacity’s role in demarcating potential and realized opportunities.

中文翻译：

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产业离岸外包与企业国际化：外部学习的互补性


我们借鉴组织学习理论，认为行业离岸外包强度为公司了解国外市场提供了知识库。然而，从其他公司的跨境投入活动中了解国外市场是具有挑战性的，而且一个行业中嵌入的知识库可能无法立即被所有公司利用。我们认为，实现这种外部学习机会取决于国际化特定经验和一般吸收能力所促进的互补性。行业离岸外包强度对缺乏国外市场经验的公司国际化的可能性没有影响。他们缺乏国际化特定的知识，这为实现外部学习机会设置了障碍，除非他们具有支持从新领域吸收见解的一般吸收能力，从而与知识库形成互补。相比之下，具有国外市场经验的公司可以更轻松地利用知识库，从而提高其国际化程度。经验知识和外部知识之间的互补性使这种效果成为可能。来自 56 个行业（1997 年至 2019 年）的 5,745 家美国公司的数据支持这些论点。本研究将行业离岸外包作为一种新的国际化决定因素，其基础是来自同行活动的知识库。它还强调了体验式和非体验式学习形式之间的互补性，以及吸收能力在划分潜力和已实现机会方面的作用。