Mobility frictions and MNE innovation internationalisation: a modular microfoundations analysis

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.