— competitive advantage, property protection, intellectual property

Speaker: Xiaohong “Iris” Quan, Phd, Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship, San Jose State University
Meeting Date: Thursday, June 3, 2010
Time: 6:00 pm Networking; 6:30 pm Management Forum/Guided Networking; 7:00 pm dinner; 7:30 pm Presentation
Location: Ramada, Sunnyvale

Summary:
Management Forum / Guided Networking: Bring Your Management Challenge; Arrive by 6:30 PM to join this exciting Management Forum. Following informal networking is a guided discussion typically related to the topic of the evening’s after dinner talk, or of general Technology Management interest.
Light Dinner: This month we’re continuing with our light dinner format — typically sandwiches, salad, drinks, and cookie or similar light dinner.

Presentation: Doing R&D in China
Multinational corporations (MNCs) have increasingly located research and development (R&D) activities in developing countries such as China and India since the 1990s. While governments in developing countries are eagerly attracting foreign R&D to their local economies, developed countries are concerned about losing their competitive advantage due to R&D offshoring. Given the weak Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) regimes in developing countries, intellectual property protection has emerged as a major concern.

Dr. Quan will address the following questions: What exactly do MNC R&D labs do in China? Why do they invest in such R&D activities? How do they protect their intellectual property rights there? How do the MNC R&D labs interact with the local innovation systems?

In summary, she will briefly discuss a comparison of the emerging MNCs from China. Dr. Quan’s formal research addresses these issues.

Bio:
Xiaohong “Iris” Quan is an Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship in the College of Business at San Jose State University. She holds a PhD from the University of California at Berkeley. She was a SPRIE Fellow at Stanford University before joining San Jose State University. Her research interests are in the fields of entrepreneurship, technology and innovation management, and international business. Her recent research involves topics on, for example, multinational corporations’ research and development activities in China, immigrant entrepreneurs and professionals in Silicon Valley, business model innovation and intellectual property protection in the semiconductor industry. She publishes in academic journals such as the IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management and the International Journal of Technology Management.