Abstract
This article reports the findings of a longitudinal qualitative study into the integration processes of a Chinese multinational firm’s acquisition of two UK subsidiaries in a defence sensitive engineering sector. The paper presents a multi-level processual analysis of the interplay between, post-acquisition motives and legitimacy in the formation of actor and firm-level unwillingness to engage in international reverse knowledge transfer (IRKT) to the acquiring parent firm. By considering the reverse propositions of perceived post-acquisition negative motives, unwillingness and illegitimacy the paper examines stickiness in the flow between acquisition, ownership and transfer of knowledge. Key findings include the influence of perceived learn and leave motives that led to the becoming of subsidiary unwillingness through fear that knowledge transfer would lead to lessening commitment to the subsidiaries. The paper also reveals the role of institutional-level factors based on historical dynamics between acquired and acquirer that led to judgments being formed within the acquired firm as to the legitimacy of knowledge ownership and thus transfer. The paper shows the evolution of strategizing game between the firms to both protect and transfer knowledge and reveals a different evolution of transfer between codified explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge. In our cases, using soft power strategizing, the Chinese parent company created innovation for the global market through transfer of tacit and non-codified explicit knowledge rather than through codified knowledge. Key to this achievement was to create relational and instrumental legitimacy between local and expatriate technical level who then became willing to engage IRKT.