Cross-border inventor relationships are central to multinational enterprise (MNE) innovation, but they can be disrupted by policy shocks that limit mobility. This study uses a modular microfoundations framework to separate three links that are often bundled together: how macro-level mobility restrictions affect inventor relationships, how pre-existing relational and knowledge conditions shape resilience, and how inventor networks aggregate into firm-level innovation internationalisation. We combine inventor-level patent records from USPTO PatentsView and OECD REGPAT with policy measures from the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker and firm data for 120 global R&D-intensive MNEs from 2018 to 2022. Dyad-level estimates indicate that stricter travel restrictions and broader policy stringency were associated with lower rates of new cross-border tie formation and continuation. Existing relationships with repeated prior collaboration or greater technological overlap were less sensitive to these frictions. At the firm level, denser cross-border inventor networks were associated with broader international participation in inventive activity in the following period. The contribution is not a new general theory of internationalisation. Rather, the modular approach provides a level-specific explanation of where mobility shocks enter the innovation process, which relationships absorb them, and how micro-level disruption appears in firm-level outcomes. The findings also clarify the limits of patent-based collaboration measures and the role of organisational adaptation and digital coordination as boundary conditions.
Advancing healthcare innovation involves deep uncertainty for the engaged stakeholders. We present an inductive study on business venture sensemaking and its role in the shaping of an early-stage healthcare innovation. We address the understudied phenomenon through the context of personalised medicine. We analyse qualitative data that comprises 23 semi-structured interviews conducted with key organisational stakeholders in Finland involved in personalised medicine including business ventures, the public sector and academia. Our results show that stakeholders involved in personalised medicine engage in multistakeholder dialogue through prospective sensemaking. This sensemaking includes three antenarratives: 1) the anticipation of value prospects, 2) the integration for value co-creation, and 3) institutionalisation of value expectations. We find that venture participation in the early stages of innovation is constrained by the academic and public sector stakeholders' sensemaking, especially during the construction of frameworks and associated understandings. We illuminate the dynamics of prospective sensemaking and multistakeholder interests and provide insights into the required collaborative efforts to navigate ambiguity, complexity and uncertainty. This study contributes to healthcare innovation literature through the provision of an increased understanding about future value creation during early-stage healthcare innovation, viewed as an incremental process towards the future through collaborative multistakeholder dialogue. We provide a framework for complex multistakeholder dynamics in early-stage healthcare innovation.
