Knowledge spillover, knowledge management capabilities, and innovation among returnee entrepreneurial firms in emerging markets: Does entrepreneurial ecosystem matter?

The paper brings an entrepreneurial ecosystem approach to examine the conditions under which returnee entrepreneurs can overcome their liabilities and promote innovation in emerging markets. The existing literature has focused on how returnee entrepreneurial firms can transit knowledge to local firms with the assumption that the former are more innovative than the latter. However, returnee entrepreneurial firms themselves experience difficulties in achieving superior innovation performance as they face liabilities when returning to their home countries. In this paper, we argue that such firms can take advantage of the knowledge spillover in the entrepreneurial ecosystem to promote innovation performance by enhancing their own knowledge management capability. The empirical evidence supports this proposition. Although we proposed that this relationship is likely contingent upon the attributes of entrepreneurial ecosystem, empirical evidence does not support it. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.