Here are the PhD candidates for whom I have served as a PhD Supervisor:
(Status: In progress)
This research will focus on investigating the impact of digital transformation on entrepreneurship in Australia. In Essay 1, it will analyse the impact of adopting digital technologies by entrepreneurs on their entrepreneurial activity. It is important to do this study to understand how digital technologies influence entrepreneurial activity. The novel contribution of the study categorizes different types of digital technologies and their specific applications within entrepreneurial activities. Additionally, in Essay 2, it will examine how a firm's use of digital technologies affects its overall performance. The study is important to understand how specific technologies yield the highest returns. The novel contribution of the study is that the strategic integration of digital technologies leads to multifaceted improvements in a firm’s operational capabilities, competitive positioning, and market responsiveness, culminating in enhanced overall performance. Lastly, in Essay 3, it will investigate the impact of industry and regions with more extensive digital transformations to create digital entrepreneurs. The analysis is important to design targeted initiatives that encourage innovation and economic growth in various regions and industries. The contribution of the study is revealing the patterns of entrepreneurial activity in industries and regions.
(Status: In progress)
Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) has long been recognised as a critical source of advanced technologies for host countries. The existing literature extensively discusses the role of FDI in knowledge diffusion and technology transfer to recipient economies. However, evidence from India remains mixed, warranting further exploration. Most studies focus primarily on R&D spillovers and productivity improvements associated with FDI, leaving limited clarity regarding its role in the diffusion of important and radical technologies—often referred to as breakthrough technologies.
Moreover, the nature of breakthrough knowledge diffusion and the effectiveness of FDI firms in this regard remain largely unexplored. Given that FDI is highly concentrated in a few metropolitan regions and major cities, challenges persist in achieving broader diffusion of these critical technologies across the country. This study addresses this gap by examining the impact of improved highway connectivity specifically, the Golden Quadrilateral, which links major FDI hubs—on the diffusion of breakthrough knowledge to connected regional areas. Further, while the role of FDI is often studied in terms of investment, managerial expertise, and technical know-how, this thesis investigates an important but previously underexplored channel of foreign technology transfer: the mobility of foreign inventors. The influence of FDI inflows on inventor mobility remains largely untapped in existing research.
This dissertation contributes to the FDI literature by empirically analysing how FDI promotes breakthrough knowledge diffusion, enhances innovation, and facilitates foreign inventor mobility in India. We utilise a novel and previously unexplored dataset of Indian patent citations obtained from the Indian Patent Advanced Search System (InPASS), managed by the Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trademarks (CGPDTM), Government of India. To date, this dataset has not been used in the academic literature to measure knowledge diffusion, particularly in relation to breakthrough FDI knowledge, nor to investigate the mobility of foreign inventors in the Indian context. By leveraging this unique data source, the study provides important new insights into the mechanisms of knowledge diffusion through FDI and the role of foreign inventors in enhancing domestic innovation.
Comprising three interrelated essays, the thesis first begins by examining the local presence of foreign companies in the diffusion of breakthrough FDI knowledge to Indian firms. The empirical findings suggest that the entry of FDI firms into India significantly influences the diffusion of breakthrough knowledge, as their presence facilitates the transfer of breakthrough technologies to domestic firms. The results further indicate that more novel and breakthrough FDI knowledge diffusion are ‘more’ geographically localised. As the novelty of FDI patents increases, the likelihood of their being cited by firm’s local firm located farther away decreases, highlighting that proximity to FDI firms plays a crucial role in effective breakthrough knowledge diffusion.
The second essay explores the role of the Golden Quadrilateral (GQ) highway network, which serves as the backbone of transport in India, in facilitating the diffusion of breakthrough knowledge from FDI firms located in major hubs to the local firms in regional areas. As a key corridor for both passenger traffic and freight movement, the GQ significantly reduces travel time and logistics costs across states. The essay argues that enhanced connectivity improves access to FDI-intensive urban centres, enabling local firms near the GQ to interact more efficiently with frontier firms, absorb advanced knowledge, and thereby improve their innovation and productivity. The findings suggest that local firms located in districts connected to the GQ experience significantly increase the diffusion of breakthrough FDI knowledge, as evidenced by increased citations of FDI owned patents by local firms. The study further shows that knowledge diffusion is notably stronger for firms in closer proximity to the GQ network, compared to those located farther away. Importantly, local firm’s citations of breakthrough FDI patents emerge as a key channel of technology transfer, contributing to improved innovation outcomes among Indian firms. This is reflected in higher patent filings and enhanced productivity. The results also indicate that the more novel the FDI patents, the greater their contribution to local innovation and performance. Overall, the proximity to the GQ not only facilitates access to frontier knowledge but also amplifies local firms’ innovation capabilities and productivity.
The third essay investigates how FDI inflows drive the mobility and relocation of foreign inventors to India, and how this mobility contributes to the diffusion of advanced knowledge and the strengthening of the domestic innovation ecosystem. It emphasises that FDI brings not only capital and technology but may be effective in mobility of highly skilled inventors who act as critical carriers of tacit knowledge. These inventors serve as vital bridges between global innovation frontiers and domestic R&D efforts, enabling the transfer of complex, experience-based knowledge that cannot be easily codified. The empirical analysis shows that firms which have received FDI inflows at any point in time are more likely to host foreign inventors compared to firms that have never received such investment. This finding suggests that FDI may create pathways for international collaboration and foster connections to the global innovation environment. These global linkages, in turn, can further attract foreign inventors to relocate to India, reinforcing a virtuous cycle of knowledge spillovers and innovation-led growth. The relocation of foreign investors may further facilitate deeper learning, promotes capability-building within local firms, and enhances the long-term innovative capacity of the host economy—often beyond what firms can achieve through their absorptive capacity alone.
(Status: Completed with a PhD Degree awarded by Swinburne University of Technology in November 2023)
Although the link between institutional quality and economic growth has been examined extensively, a consensus has not emerged. This thesis contributes to the literature by critically analysing the effects of domestic institutions on exports, economic growth, and innovation in developing countries. Chapter 1 of the thesis provides a general introduction to the key concepts that are explored in the rest of the thesis. Chapter 2 of the thesis provides various definitions, classifications, and the evolutionary process of institutions. In Chapter 3, we link various institutional theories to the three main research questions of the dissertation. Chapter 4 presents different types of institutional quality indicators used in the three standalone essays of this dissertation.
In Chapter 5, we use a panel data fixed effects sectoral gravity trade model for 8526 bilateral trade flows between 2012 and 2021, and find that business freedom, control of corruption, and property rights, generate the largest positive effects on the manufacturing sector real exports in developing countries.
The emphasis in Chapter 6 is on “which domestic institutions strengthen the relationship between manufacturing sector real exports and economic growth in developing countries?” For this essay, we employ a panel data fixed effects model for 101 developing countries between 2012 and 2021. The results of this essay confirm that the rule of law and political stability are relevant for export-led real output growth.
Similar to the empirical approach in Chapter 6, Chapter 7 of the thesis establishes a panel data fixed effects model to investigate how an increase in the quality of domestic institutions can contribute to export-led innovation in developing countries. We find that regulatory quality matters for manufacturing sector export-led innovation in our 42 developing country sample. Chapter 8 concludes the thesis with policy implications and areas for further research.
The dominant approach in existing empirical research is to only use country wide indicators of institutions, which assess the ‘average’ institutional contexts across industries. By contrast, our studies weight the contribution of institutions to each industry’s performance. Measuring institutional quality both at the country level and industry level using a variable for the institution’s dependence on manufacturing industries, as proposed in Rajan and Zingales (1998), is the main methodological contribution of the three essays of this thesis.
(Status: Completed with a PhD Degree awarded by Swinburne University of Technology in May 2023)
In the past, foreign direct investment contributors were mainly from developed countries, but the trend has changed. Firms from emerging countries, particularly China, account for a significant share of outward foreign direct investment (OFDI). The Springboard theory argues that foreign direct investment is an effective way to access strategic resources such as technological knowledge. It suggests emerging country multinational enterprises (EMNEs) use foreign investment as a springboard to acquire knowledge overseas to overcome their competitive and latecomer disadvantages. The international expansion through OFDI potentially brings a positive impact on the innovativeness of (parent) firms at home through reverse technology spillover, when foreign subsidiary firms learn, assimilate, and transfer knowledge back to their parent firm. As this is relatively a new phenomenon, the literature is still in its nascent stage and focuses mainly on motivations, determinants, and trends. This dissertation contributes to the literature by taking a quantitative approach to contribute to the understanding of several important aspects on the relationship between OFDI and reverse technology spillover. The work consists of three essays. The first is a firm-level panel data study of Chinese firms to estimate the extent of an important innovation-seeking motive of OFDI: reverse technology spillover. The second essay examines the role of host country characteristics on Chinese firms OFDI projects’ location decision. The third essay examines the influences of multiple facets of distance on the extent of reverse technology spillover enjoyed by Chinese firms. Based on OFDI project-level data, it specifically examines strategies to mitigate the risks presented by distance and how to enhance the positive impact of reverse technology spillover accordingly.
In the first essay, I apply difference-in-differences (DID) analysis to estimate the impact of OFDI on innovative activities of the parent firms. The empirical analysis exploits the information on the change in patenting activities before and after OFDI engagement inferred from a panel dataset of Chinese firms from 2005 to 2015. To minimise the risk of selection bias into OFDI, the analysis matches the OFDI firms as the treated group in the sample with similar non-OFDI firms as the control group using the Propensity Score Matching technique. Furthermore, the analysis also implements recent advances in event-study DID to account for the staggered OFDI timing across the firms. The findings indicate a positive impact of OFDI on the parent firms at home, not only in terms of the extent of the innovation activities but also on the quality of innovation produced. This evidence supports the Springboard perspective that OFDI can be an effective strategy for EMNEs as their technological catch-up strategy.
In the second essay, I ask whether OFDI firms choose a location to maximise the reverse technology spillover as a function of the location’s knowledge capabilities and firms’ motive to do OFDI projects. Location choice is a key parameter in reverse technology spillover from foreign investment because knowledge is partially tacit in nature and localised; the knowledge transfer is possible through interaction that eases with proximity. However, the existing literature on the role of country-specific characteristics tends to assume location choice decisions as exogenous ignoring firm heterogeneity. Given the importance of proximity to knowledge for positive reverse technology spillover, I examine Chinese OFDI firms' location choices decisions, taking into account for possible firm and OFDI project heterogeneity. Specifically, using greenfield FDI data from the fDiMarkets database and discrete choice models, we explore the host country’s knowledge factors involved in the determination of OFDI location. Other results highlight that firm's motives of OFDI derived from project specific characteristics determines the host country for the project. The findings provide evidence that OFDI location choice is not exogenous to a firm. Instead, it is based on a strategy to maximise the returns from reverse technology spillovers.
In the last essay, I examine the adjacent risk associated with distance on reverse technology spillover. I focus on two related questions: (i) Does investing in knowledge-intensive countries always enhance the reverse technology spillover?, and (ii) Is there any factor that can deter the level of reverse technology spillover? Spillover is possible through learning which is enhanced by effective coordination. However, the difference in characteristics between home and host country hinders effective coordination. Such differences arise from various distance dimensions, which reduces the ability of a firm to learn, understand, and transfer knowledge to the parent firm. Using greenfield investment of Chinese firms, the analysis finds that not all distance dimensions are detrimental to reverse technology spillover. The results suggest negative impact of cultural and technological distance, positive impact of institutional distance whereas no effect of geographical and economic distance. More importantly, the analysis in the third essay addresses a shortcoming in the literature by providing insights on possible strategies to mitigate the negative impact of distance. For example, EMNEs may overcome risks from their prior FDI experience or the experience of other firms. Prior experiences help them identify the associated risks, follow best practices, and develop capabilities to know the host markets. This study finds evidence of moderating effect of experience, highlighting the importance of knowledge about host countries before the OFDI.
(Status: Completed with a PhD Degree awarded by Swinburne University of Technology in June 2022)
This dissertation empirically investigates two aspects of externalities concerning environmental innovation. The first two essays provide insights into why knowledge externalities are geographically bounded in scientific and academic settings. The last essay reveals the role of double externalities on the effectiveness of policies to support environmental innovation.
Environmental technologies are humanity’s last refuge in the struggle against climate change (Nordhaus, 2019), yet research demonstrates that patenting in climate change technologies is falling worldwide (Rodríguez et al., 2019). It is imperative to explore the innovation processes behind climate change technologies (also known as environmental technologies) to examine the cause of the decline in inventions. Due to the internationalisation of the innovation process, its aspects are situated in regions and countries where local competitive and comparative advantages promise the most significant returns to investments made in innovation. Therefore, the said examination must also consider different aspects of innovation. The dissertation at hand examines three aspects of climate change innovation: scientific knowledge, academic knowledge, and the pricing of the dual externality.
My research finds that knowledge (academic and scientific) tends to localise geographically, and if geography can grant access, it can also exclude it. If something is excludable, then it is also monetisable. A finding that questions the basis of the patent system and knowledge’s status as a public good. I find that knowledge is a semi-public good (because it is excludable). However, I find that pricing systems can increase the pace of development for nascent (i.e., environmental) technologies (the pricing mechanism caters to the semi-public nature of the good in question).
I also make two methodological contributions to empirical studies in environmental economics (using natural language processing to improve the European Patent Office’s scheme to classify climate change technologies), and climate change scientometrics (using unsupervised machine learning to account for the distribution of scientific and academic knowledge).
(Status: Completed with a PhD Degree awarded byThe University of Melbourne in April 2010)
This thesis investigates the geographical localisation of knowledge spillovers using patent citation analyses of Australian patents registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Even though advances communications technologies have reduced the cost of information transmission, tacit knowledge is still costly to transmit over distance. Because face-to-face communication is required for effective and efficient transmission of tacit knowledge, those individuals that are close to the source of the invention benefit more than distant ones. Australia is an ideal testing ground for geographical localisation of knowledge spillovers not only at the national level but also at the smaller units of aggregation such as the states, statistical divisions, and statistical subdivisions. It is one of the most isolated countries in the world and there are large distances between its states and capital cities, yet its large number of patents registered with the USPTO makes empirical investigation possible. This thesis found evidence for geographical localisation at the national, state, statistical division and statistical subdivision levels using patent citation analysis. The evidence suggests knowledge spillovers became less localised with time. Also, the less general patents are more localised, and patents from the same technology are more localised. However, there is only weak evidence for corporate patents to be more localised than university patents