Research Summary We argue that the anti‐immigrant backlash sparked by globalization's skeptics isolates U.S. minority entrepreneurs as outsiders, which constrains their domestic business opportunities. In response, these entrepreneurs leverage their shared ethnic identities as insiders within diaspora networks to pursue international expansion opportunities focused on their countries or regions of origin. We hypothesize that diasporas imprint minority entrepreneurs with risk preferences that reduce their skepticism about globalization, while increasing their caution about overcommitting resources. Analyzing over 20,000 U.S. small businesses, we find evidence that minority entrepreneurs' firms prefer to leapfrog into markets, mitigate risks via contractual and bounded commitments, and target countries that are more ethnically and linguistically fractionalized. We extend internationalization process research with theory and evidence about how diasporas influence firm‐level strategic risk management decisions. Managerial Summary Increased skepticism about globalization is fueling an anti‐immigrant backlash in multi‐ethnic societies such as the U.S. This backlash may limit opportunities for immigrant entrepreneurs from ethnic minority communities to expand domestically, potentially motivating them to expand internationally. We investigate diaspora networks as a source of competitive advantage for minority entrepreneurs' firms. We find evidence that diasporas positively influence minority entrepreneurs' risk perceptions and attitudes toward globalization, leading their firms to prefer internationalizing faster, committing earlier, and targeting more fragmented markets than other firms. Diasporas counteract skepticism about globalization. We recommend that managers utilize diasporas' access to resources, knowledge, and relationships to reduce their firms' risks of internationalizing and that policymakers tailor government trade promotion programs to leverage diasporas to reduce transaction costs and increase exports.

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Around the world, governments make substantial investments in public sector research and development (R&D) entities and activities to generate major scientific and technical advances that may catalyze long-term economic growth. Institutions ranging from the Chinese Academy of Sciences to the French National Centre for Scientific Research to the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centers conduct basic and applied R&D to create commercially valuable knowledge that supports the innovation goals of their respective government sponsors. Globally, the single largest public sector R&D sponsor is the U.S. federal government. In 2019 alone, the U.S. government allocated over $14.9 billion to federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs), also known as national labs. However, little is known about how federal agencies’ utilization of FFRDCs, their modes of R&D collaboration, and their adoption of non-patent intellectual property (IP) policies (copyright protection and materials transfer agreements) affect agency-level performance in technology transfer. In particular, the lack of standardized metrics for quantitatively evaluating government entities’ effectiveness in managing innovation is a critical unresolved issue. We address this issue by conducting exploratory empirical analyses of federal agencies’ innovation management activities using both supply-side (filing ratio, transfer rate, and licensing success rate) and demand-side (licensing income and portfolio exclusivity) outcome metrics. We find economically significant effects of external R&D collaborations and non-patent IP policies on the technology transfer performance of 10 major federal executive branch agencies (fiscal years 1999–2016). We discuss the scholarly, managerial, and policy implications for ongoing and future evaluations of technology transfer at federal labs. We offer new insights and guidance on how critical differences in federal agencies’ interpretation and implementation of their R&D management practices in pursuit of their respective missions affect their technology transfer performance outcomes. We generalize key findings to address the broader innovation processes of public sector R&D entities worldwide.