Cross-border innovation is increasingly shaped by geopolitical rivalry, export controls, sanctions compliance, data localization, and selective decoupling. These forces do not simply reduce global connectivity; they reconfigure how innovation networks form, govern exchange, and learn across borders.Methods: This review integrates scholarship on interorganizational networks, global value chains, innovation systems, and economic geography. A multilevel framework links policy shocks to tie-level frictions, network restructuring, and firm learning outcomes.Results: Fragmentation changes cross-border knowledge flows through three mechanisms: (1) compliance friction that lowers tie bandwidth and slows joint problem-solving; (2) constraints on talent mobility and data movement that weaken tacit knowledge transfer; and (3) standards divergence that reduces interoperability and increases coordination costs. Firms respond by rewiring partner portfolios, modularizing R&D, using clean-room collaboration for regulated data and IP, and regionalizing innovation activity with redundancy.Conclusions: Post-fragmentation performance depends less on network size and more on governance fit. Firms that match knowledge type with appropriate governance (modularity, controlled interfaces, selective deep ties, and auditable collaboration) are better positioned to protect critical knowledge while sustaining exploratory learning.
Oana Branzei (Fri,) studied this question.