What Enables a Chinese Firm to Create New-to-the-World Innovations? A Historical Case Study of Intrafirm Coopetition in the Instant Messaging Service Sector

The authors thank Jiye Mao, Zhongwei Luo, Kang Xie, Jinghua Xie, Yao Wu, and Xuehua Liao for help with access to Tencent. The authors received generous feedback on the various drafts of the paper from many people, including Rajshree Agarwal, John Child, Victor Cui, Alex Eapen, Kathy Eisenhardt, Devi Gnyawali, Shayne Gary, Peter Hofman, Hong Jiang, Dan Levinthal, Arie Lewin, Lei Li, Kwanghui Lim, Steven Lui, Jiye Mao, Richard Nelson, Joon Hyung Park, Salih Ozdemir, George Shinkle, Sid Winter, Lianxi Zhou, and seminar and conference participants around the world. J. P. Murmann acknowledges the many Chinese academics and businesspeople who starting on his first visit to China in 2013 tried to help identify companies with new-to-the-world innovations.