Abstract:    With the increasingly fierce global technology competition, Chinese enterprises are paying more and more attention to applying for patents in the international market, especially in the developed economies. Will these patents be cited by enterprises in the developed economies? Which factors can contribute to the number of the citation? Based on the data of 4,880 invention patents granted by Chinese enterprises in the United States from 2005 to 2014, we analyzed the relationship between enterprise knowledge source and international reverse knowledge transfer, e.g. patents be cited by enterprises in developed economies, with negative binomial regression. We found from the study that: (1) Local knowledge sources and international knowledge sources have distinct effects on enterprises′ reverse knowledge transfer, local knowledge sources have a negative effect on the enterprises′ reverse knowledge transfer, while international knowledge sources have a positive effect. When considering about an emerging market enterprise′s transferring of knowledge across borders, the more local knowledge it absorbs, the more unfavorable it is for the enterprise to transfer its knowledge to developed countries, and the more international knowledge it absorbs, the more favorable it is for the enterprise to increase its knowledge reference from developed countries. (2) Technical complexity strengthens and regulates the negative relationship between local knowledge sources and reverse transfer of enterprise knowledge, as well as the positive relationship between international knowledge sources and reverse transfer of enterprise knowledge. When the technical complexity of patents is higher, absorbing knowledge from international knowledge sources can have a stronger effect on the reverse transfer of knowledge by enterprises, while absorbing local knowledge sources aggravates information asymmetry, which is unfavorable for foreign enterprises to cite their knowledge. (3) The level of national innovation capabilities weakens the negative relationship between local knowledge sources and reverse transfer of enterprise knowledge, as well as the positive relationship between international knowledge sources and reverse transfer of enterprise knowledge. When the national innovation level is high, the disadvantages of local knowledge sources on the reverse transfer of enterprise knowledge and the advantages of international knowledge sources on the reverse transfer of enterprise knowledge will both be weakened.This paper firstly proposed international "reverse knowledge transfer" from the perspective of enterprises in emerging economies, that is, the patents of enterprises in emerging economies are cited by enterprises in developed countries/regions, which enriches the research on knowledge sources and enterprise innovation. From the perspective of knowledge sources, it focuses on the reverse knowledge transfer of emerging market enterprises to the knowledge adoption by enterprises in the developed countries (the United States in this research), and takes into account the regulatory role of technology complexity, which deepens the understanding of how the knowledge source strategies of enterprises in emerging economies affect the micro-mechanism of enterprises in developed countries to quote their knowledge. Secondly, considering the change of national innovation level over time, this paper advanced the research on knowledge source and knowledge reverse transfer from a dynamic perspective. Based on the improvement of innovation capabilities in emerging market, such as China in this research, we analyzed the evolution of the relationship between different types of knowledge sources and knowledge reverse transfer. The analysis found that after the improvement of national innovation capabilities, the negative effect of local knowledge sources on enterprises′ reverse knowledge transfer and the positive effect of international knowledge sources on enterprises′ reverse knowledge transfer will be weakened, which reveals the dynamic impact of the improvement of innovation capability at the macro level over time. After the improvement of the national innovation capability, Chinese enterprises need to actively adjust the strategy of knowledge sources to further utilize and build the advantages of local knowledge.

Key words: local knowledge source, international knowledge source, reverse knowledge transfer