僅管在開發中國家，廠商面對著智慧財產權虛弱保護下價值創造與攫取之挑戰，廠商卻仍然逐漸將其創新活動外包至開發中國家。廠商為何冒著這種風險進行境外創新外包?廠商如何管理其境外創新外包?學界迄今仍未提出明確解答。為了填補此研究缺口，我們採納知識基礎觀點進行相關研究。我們主張：一個對智慧財產權虛弱保護的國家，若其具備低成本、高才能的人力資本，廠商將創新活動外包至該國的可能性增加。此外，我們更進一步主張：當廠商可提高創新外包活動的任務專屬性與專案模組化程度，則得以攫取境外創新外包之價值，並且保護在開發中國家執行境外創新外包所需的專有資訊。本研究透過Offshoring Research Network (ORN)、經濟自由度指數(Index of Economic Freedom; IEF)與世界經濟論壇(World Economic Forum; WEF)的資料檢驗上述的研究主張，發現所有假說皆獲得支持。

As firms have been increasingly outsourcing innovation activities in developing countries where the firms confront challenges of creating and capturing value due to weak protection of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), the answers to why these firms still take the risk and how they manage it remain unclear. To bridge the knowledge gap, we adopt the Knowledge-based View (KBV) to conduct the research on offshore outsourcing innovation. We argue that the availability of human capital, in terms of low-cost and high-skilled talent, in a country with weak IPR protection increases the likelihood that a firm outsources an innovation activity to that country. In addition, we further propose that the main effect of human capital can be positively moderated by the designing of task specificity and project modularity which the firm uses to capture value and protect proprietary information from outsourcing innovation in developing countries. Using the data of Offshoring Research Network (ORN), Index of Economic Freedom (IEF), and World Economic Forum (WEF) to test these hypotheses, we find our premises supported.