Cross-border acquisitions and technological spillover: evidence from European regional clusters

Purpose – Relying on mergers and acquisition transaction-level data set and adopting a more regionspecific approach with a focus on industry-region pairs, this paper aims to examine how cross-border acquisitions (CBAs) have an effect, in terms of technological spillover and collaboration, on European regional clusters. Design/methodology/approach – Adopting an industry-region pair approach, this study is based on a quantitative analysis of regional clusters belonging to 262 European regions and 25 patenting industries. Different thresholds of industrial specialization are used to identify clustering industries within a region. Invention performance at the regional cluster level is defined through two sets of different measurements to assess the impact of CBAs on invention quantity performance and internal and external technological collaboration. Findings – The results reveal that CBAs have a positive and significant impact on the number of patents as well as the number of internal and external technological collaborations and that this effect is persistent over time. Furthermore, through exploring the interindustry technological spillover effect of CBAs registered in the same region of a cluster but outside the cluster itself, the authors found that CBAs in a regional cluster are inclined to produce technological spillovers within the cluster but no significant effects in the other industries of the region. Originality/value – This paper is an attempt to empirically explore CBAs and technological spillover in European regional clusters. Therefore, it contributes to the debate, thanks to the use of an industry-region pair approach.