How can the adoption of different digital technologies shape subsidiary disseminative capacity and reverse knowledge transfer in MNCs?

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to advance the understanding of how different forms of digital technologies (i.e. digital communication technologies [DCTs] and digital in situ technologies [DSTs]) have varying effects on subsidiaries’ capacities to engage in reverse knowledge transfer (i.e. the flow of knowledge from subsidiaries to headquarters). Design/methodology/approach The increasing accessibility and sophistication of digital technologies has prompted growing interest in their implications for how multinational corporations (MNCs) organize value-adding activities. This conceptual paper argues that existing international business research has tended to treat digitalization as a uniform process. In contrast, the authors distinguish between DCTs and DSTs, each of which introduces distinct organizational dynamics. Findings This study develops a theoretical argument suggesting that the type of digital technologies adopted by MNCs configures value-adding activities in ways shaped by opposing forces, namely, centrifugal and centripetal tendencies. These opposing dynamics contribute to variation in subsidiaries’ capacity to generate and disseminate knowledge. To explain this heterogeneity, this study proposes a framework and a set of propositions that predict the effects of different digital technologies on the dimensions of disseminative capacity (i.e. ability, willingness and opportunity). Practical implications Headquarters’ adoption of specific forms of digital technologies can influence subsidiaries’ action in disseminating knowledge. The conceptual discussion in this paper can benefit managers by clarifying the consequences of adopting different forms of digital technologies to mobilize and leverage MNCs’ globally dispersed knowledge base. Originality/value This paper offers a more fine-tuned perspective on digitalization and its effects on knowledge management in multinational firms. By rejecting the treatment of digitalization as a uniform phenomenon, it provides a stronger theoretical foundation for future empirical work on the strategic management of digital transformation in global contexts.