Graduation Year

2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree

Ph.D.

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

Degree Granting Department

Business Administration

Major Professor

Sunil Mithas, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Anol Bhattacherjee, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Sajeev Varki, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Reza Ebrahimi, Ph.D.

Keywords

Business Value of Artifical Intelligence, Technology Development Globalization, Artifical Intelligence Investments, Firm Performance

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is quickly changing the competitive landscape of most industries, and understanding how to incorporate this technology into products, services, and processes is becoming crucial for firms. This dissertation presents three studies that address different strategic challenges that arose with the unfolding of AI. First, I study how multinational enterprises globalize the development of AI. I argue that concentrating AI development or globalizing it has different implications for supply chain responsiveness and operations complexity. I use a combination of a rare dataset on software presence across 45 countries and financial data to show that AI development globalization has an inverted U-shaped relationship with MNE’s foreign profits. Second, I study the drivers of the investments in AI by firms located in an important emerging market (i.e., India). Considering the risks involved with these investments and their unclear returns, and the challenges related to funding in emerging markets, I argue that firms with slack resources and that are not meeting their performance aspirations are more likely to assume the risks of AI investments. I leverage unique data, comprising two waves of surveys with 200 Indian firms, to confirm my hypotheses. Finally, I study the complementarity between AI and research and development (R&D) in mitigating performance stagnation in terms of revenues and profits. This study uses data on the presence of AI development software across more than 600 large US firms to provide a nuanced understanding of the complementary effects of innovation and digital transformation on shaping growth trajectories.

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