DrMichael Murphree

Murphree is a Senior Lecturer in the Discipline of International Business at the University of Sydney Business School. He has a PhD in International Affairs, Science and Technology from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Master in International Affairs from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Murphree is interested in foreign direct investment and local economic upgrading, extractive industries and international entrepreneurship in country-specific and comparative perspectives.

Murphree’s research objective is to generate findings which can help firms and government authorities harness the benefits of foreign investment and technology development to facilitate broad prosperity. His research has been published in international journals such as Research Policy, Journal of Product Innovation Management, Harvard Business Review, Journal of International Management, Journal of International Business Policy and Journal of Technology Transfer. His first book (co-authored with Dan Breznitz) – The Run of the Red Queen: Government, Innovation, Globalization, and Economic Growth in China, was published in 2011 and was the winner of the 2012 British International Studies Association Susan Strange Best Book Award and bronze medalist for the 2012 Axiom Business Book Award for International Business/Globalization.

Murphree has developed courses on comparative innovation systems and globalization which help students better understand both the impact of the global movement of goods on economic and social development and the sourcing, management and development of knowledge in a global context. He serves the academic community as an editorial board member at the Journal of International Business Policy and Journal of International Management. In 2020, he was awarded the Industry Studies Association Emerging Scholar in Innovation and Entrepreneurship Award.

Murphree’s research strives to connect management theories to practice in industry- and region-specific contexts as a result of his training and background experience. His research in the Greater China Region considers ongoing institutional and environmental changes and their impacts on firms’ competitive advantages and competitive strategies. This broad topic is considered in the specific contexts of intellectual property rights, labour intensive industries such as consumer plastics, and high technology industries including electronics and information technology. His most recent projects consider the driving forces behind cross-border entrepreneurship by young Taiwanese and the succession in and reform of Taiwanese family businesses. For these projects, he has conducted field research in ten Chinese cities and regions since 2007. He speaks fluent Mandarin.

Outside of China, Murphree studies the impact of foreign direct investment on local firm capabilities. This project has examined the setting of the offshore oil and gas industry in Newfoundland, Canada. It is developing new insights on MNC subsidiary behaviour as a result of the localization of management and the impact of large scale FDI and local investment policies on the upgrading and performance of local enterprises in developed countries. This research is being extended through a grant from ExxonMobil to study the future of extractive industries in Canada and Australia.

Before joining the University of Sydney in 2022, Murphree was an Assistant Professor of International Business at the University of South Carolina Darla Moore School of Business and served as a visiting professor at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto in 2019.