Why intra- and inter-regional diversification matter: emerging-country multinational firms' geographic diversification and green technology innovations

Purpose Geographic diversification is a critical strategy for emerging market firms (EMFs) with limited domestic knowledge to support the development of knowledge-intensive green technology innovation (GTI). This study focuses on the multi-regional operations of EMFs and investigates how EMFs' intra-regional and inter-regional diversification influence their GTIs independently and jointly from an organizational learning perspective. Design/methodology/approach Data from 10,505 firm-year observations from 2,471 Chinese listed manufacturing firms, sourced from the Chinese National Intellectual Property Office (NIPO), PatSnap, the China Stock Market and Accounting Research (CSMAR), and Wind databases, are analyzed with fixed-effects Tobit models. Findings This study finds that EMFs' intra-regional diversification has an inverted U-shaped effect on their GTIs, and inter-regional diversification has a positive effect on GTIs. We further examine the moderating role of inter-regional diversification on the relationship between EMFs' intra-regional diversification and their GTIs. Our evidence suggests that the interaction between intra- and inter-regional diversification reflects conditional complementarity rather than synergy. Originality/value This study extends geographic diversification research by introducing the intra-versus inter-regional distinction and advances the literature on the geographic diversification–GTI linkage by considering multi-regional operations.