MIT Sloan Management Review Research Points to New R&D Framework in Light of Restrictive Immigration Policies

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Sept. 9, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Restrictive immigration policies are limiting multinational enterprises’ (MNEs) ability to execute on innovation demands. Growing restrictions on the movement of highly skilled professionals across international borders make it challenging for MNEs to assemble co-located teams with the expertise required for specialized innovation. New research in MIT Sloan Management Review introduces four approaches to rethink R&D strategies in order to maintain innovation excellence when talent is geographically dispersed.

Data shows that 1,786 U.S.-based MNE units applied for visas to bring foreign knowledge workers to the U.S. from 2022 through 2024. Current restrictive immigration polices ultimately limit MNEs’ ability to transfer highly skilled foreign employees to central R&D hubs in their home countries.

“Our study found that responding to restrictive immigration policies by dispersing R&D teams among different countries had detrimental effects on innovation,” stated Ram Mudambi, the Frank M. Speakman Professor of Strategy at the Fox School of Business at Temple University. “Unfortunately, MNEs have had to resort to suboptimal solutions such as hiring less qualified local candidates, working with employees remotely, or even abandoning projects altogether.”

In “Building Innovation Teams Across National Borders,” coauthors Mudambi, Solon Moreira, associate professor of entrepreneurship and strategy at Temple University’s Fox School of Business, and Deepak Nayak, assistant professor at the Ohio State University Fisher College of Business, argue the case for global talent acquisition and examine the impact of R&D dispersion on innovation performance.

“If we examine innovation projects through the lens of two dimensions — activity codifiability and the relevance of the knowledge to the firm — we can offer managers a structured approach to reimagining how innovation can be effectively restructured and redistributed,” said Moreira.

These four strategies from that framework can help companies capitalize on their global talent while managing the inherent challenges of dispersed R&D teams:

Immigration Arbitrage — exploit differences in national immigration policies to ensure access to global talent pools through geographic diversification of R&D operations.

Modularization and Architectural Isolation — separate innovation activities into specialized knowledge domains while maintaining their core nature.

Flexible Geographic Orchestration — a hybrid approach that combines structured global dispersion with boundary-free talent orchestration.

Regional Innovation Ecosystem Integration — a two-pronged strategy that combines internally established regional excellence centers (RECs) with strategic partnerships within regional innovation ecosystems.