China's outward foreign direct investment: Location choice and firm ownership

This article evaluates the international location decisions made by public listed Chinese firms during the period 2006-2008, using a Poisson count data regression model. Further, we categorize the firms into state-controlled and privately owned according to majority ownership. We find that the determinants of internationalization differ based on ownership. State-controlled firms are attracted to countries with large sources of natural resources and risky political environments. Private firms are more market seekers. Although all firms have strategic intent, the attraction is commercially viable technology rather than core research content. Our findings also show that existing theories can sufficiently explain the actions of private Chinese firms, but adjustments are needed to understand the behavior of state-controlled multinationals.     

Real options and the theory of foreign direct investment

We extend applications of real options theory to foreign direct investment (FDI) research regarding choice of location and choice of market entry mode under uncertainty. Our study is motivated by the regional configuration of multinational enterprises (MNEs), as well as observed deviations from the stages model in internationalization theory. We shed light on these issues using real option modeling and computer simulations. The results suggest that from the standpoint of pursuing business opportunities and generating real options, building a subsidiary in a nonhome region could be more beneficial than in a home region. However, high option exercise cost may reduce the option value of a nonhome-region location. Our models also imply that choice of entry mode depends on the magnitude (high vs. low) and the type (exogenous vs. endogenous) of uncertainty. When uncertainty is high and endogenous, MNEs may prefer high-commitment entry modes because they contribute to the reduction of uncertainty and provide valuable growth options.     

Entrepreneurial orientation,market orientation,network ties,and performance: Study of entrepreneurial firms in a developing economy

Entrepreneurial orientation (EO), market orientation (MO) and network ties are typically modeled as separate antecedents of performance. However, the boundary conditions for such models are under-explored, as is their applicability to developing economy settings. Accordingly, drawing on institutional and social capital theories, the current paper argues that the performance benefits of EO and MO are complementary, and vary across different levels of social and business network ties. Using primary data gathered from entrepreneurial firms operating in Ghana, the study findings indicate that aligning high levels of EO and MO improves business performance, and particularly so when social and business network ties are well developed, since under these latter conditions, the performance benefits of aligning EO and MO are greatest.     

Place,space, and foreign direct investment into peripheral cities

Perspectives drawn from the economic geography literature are increasingly used to generate insights into locational issues in international business. In this paper, we seek to integrate these literatures further by investigating the locational determinants of foreign direct investment (FDI) into peripheral cities within an emerging economy. Peripheral cities in emerging economies are attracting a growing proportion of global FDI flows, but the international business literature lacks a framework for understanding subnational determinants of FDI, particularly into non-core locations. We draw on the core-periphery model to build and test theory on how spatial interdependencies between subnational locations impact on the distribution of FDI inflows into a large and heterogeneous country China. Our results show that whilst peripheral cities tend to have a negative effect on FDI, this effect is positively moderated by proximity to core cities. The results highlight the importance of considering interactions between place and space when investigating locational issues in international business.     

Outward foreign investment and export structure: a case study of Taiwan's FDI in Malaysia

As Taiwan's outward FDI was primarily motivated by the relatively lower costs of land and labour in the host countries, one tends to expect that the structure of production and exports in Taiwan would shift toward higher capital and skill intensity. The structure of Taiwan's exports to the ASEAN-4 was concentrated more in higher human and physical capital intensities than Taiwan's total exports to the world. Moreover, Taiwan's exports to the ASEAN-4 were more concentrated on intermediate goods and machinery. A case study of Taiwan's outward FDI in Malaysia indicated that three of the five leading industries that accounted for a large shares of changes on FDI stocks and corresponding export commodities were the same. Pooling estimates also show that FDI has a small but positive impact on Taiwan's exports to the host country. The study further showed that Taiwan's FDI in Malaysia includes mixed tactics of ‘defensive’ and ‘aggressive’ strategies in various industries. In terms of the influence of the presence and economic role of ethnic Chinese on Taiwan's outward FDI, the study showed that the ‘Chinese connection’ has not been a significant factor in determining the industrial distribution of Taiwan's FDI in Malaysia.     

Chinese foreign direct investment in the United States: Location choice determinants and strategic implications for the State of Indiana

Identifying the unique U.S. state-level factors that more often give rise to Chinese firm-led investment is the central focus of this article. Looking at Chinese investment in the United States between 2007 and 2011, this article (1) explores the determinants underlying the locational choices of Chinese firms, (2) seeks to understand why some U.S. states receive relatively greater amounts of investment from China, (3) assesses whether prior trends are likely to continue into the future; and—perhaps most importantly—(4) seeks to identify what (if anything) the state of Indiana can do to better position itself to capture greater amounts of Chinese investment moving forward. We recommend the following actions for the state of Indiana: (1) firm targeting—Indiana is a prime FDI target for private, firm-led, greenfield investment; (2) differentiation— Indiana has distinct advantages over other locations in the Midwest; (3) promotions—trade missions and overseas office locations are investments, not costs; (4) investments in relationships—cultural sensitivity and friendship make the difference.     

Managerial political ties and firm performance during institutional transitions: An analysis of mediating mechanisms

This study examines the role of mediating mechanisms impacting the relationship between managers' political ties and firm performance, with a focus on institutional transitions in China. Relying on both resource dependence and institutional theories, the analysis posits that three factors: organizational regulatory legitimacy building, institutional support, and institutional entrepreneurial opportunity recognition, mediate the relationship between managerial political ties and firm performance. Using survey data collected from 195 Chinese firms, the study concludes that institutional support and institutional entrepreneurial opportunity recognition represent two significant mediating mechanisms by which managerial political ties can result in improved firm performance. But, though a reliance on political utilization enhances organizational regulatory legitimacy, the results show that regulatory legitimacy does not directly contribute to firm performance. This study also discusses theoretical contributions, implications for managers, study limitations, and suggestions for future research.     

Heterogeneous immigrants,exports and foreign direct investment: The role of language skills

We investigate the interplay of language skills and immigrant stocks in determining bilateral FDI outstocks of OECD reporting countries. Applying a Poisson panel estimator to 2004–11 data, we find robust evidence for a positive effect of bilateral immigrants on bilateral FDI‐provided that residents of the two countries have few language skills in common. We find a similar effect for immigrants from third countries that speak the language(s) of the FDI host country, making them potential substitutes for bilateral migrants. Our findings suggest that immigrants facilitate outgoing FDI through their language skills, rather than through other characteristics like cultural familiarity.     

Trade and foreign direct investment in China: a political economy approach

We view the political process in China as trading off the social benefits of increased trade and foreign direct investment against the losses incurred by state-owned enterprises due to such liberalization. A model drawing on Grossman and Helpman [Am. Econ. Rev. 84 (1994) 833; The Political Economy of Trade Policy: Papers in Honor of Jagdish Bhagwati, MIT Press, Cambridge (1996) 199] is used to derive an empirically estimable government objective function. The key structural parameters of this model are estimated using province-level data on foreign direct investment and trade flows in China, over the years 1984-1995. We find that the weight applied to consumer welfare is between one-seventh and one-quarter of the weight applied to the output of state-owned enterprises.     

How foreign firms achieve competitive advantage in the Chinese emerging economy: Managerial ties and market orientation

As China experience unprecedented changes in its social, legal, and economic institutions, on what should foreign firms focus more to overcome this challenge, managerial ties or market orientation? This study investigates how managerial ties and market orientation affect competitive advantage and, consequently, firm performance in China. On the basis of a survey of 179 foreign firms in China, we find that both managerial ties and market orientation can lead to firm success—but in different ways. Market orientation enhances firm performance by providing differentiation and cost advantages, whereas managerial ties improve performance through an institutional advantage (i.e., superiority in securing scarce resources and institutional support). Institutional advantage, in turn, leads to differentiation and cost advantages and consequently superior performance.     

The moderating role of managerial ties in market orientation and innovation: An Asian perspective

This empirical study contributes to the extant literature by investigating the relations among market orientation, managerial ties and innovation simultaneously and interactively, from an Asian perspective. Our findings reveal that customer orientation and interfunctional coordination have a positive impact on innovation. Moreover, managerial ties play a moderation role in the market orientation–innovation linkage. Business ties enhance the relation between customer orientation and interfunctional coordination and innovation. On the other hand, business ties and competitor orientation have a negative interaction effect on innovation. In addition, political ties also dampen the relation between interfunctional coordination and innovation. Such results add new insights to the extant literature and provide implications for future research and marketing practices in Asia.     

论中国招商引资过程中政府决策的合理性

Based on consumer and manufacturer behaviors, this research describes local governments’ unique role in the process of “attracting foreign direct investment (FDI)”. Drawing from a sample of 28 provinces plus four cities throughout China from 1998 to 2004, we construct an econometric model in this paper to analyze the common factors that influenced the result of “attracting FDI”. The main finding of this paper is that in the process of “attracting FDI”, local governments play a decisive role, which puts consumer surplus, producer surplus and the other social welfare into a basket to construct its plan for “attracting FDI”. The common factors which influence the result of “attracting FDI” are local costs, the number of foreign-invested company, the market share of local companies, and the market share of foreign-invested companies. Translate from Caimao Jingji 财贸经济 (Finance & Trade Economics), 2005, (12): 70–75     

Cross-border acquisitions vs. Greenfield investment: A comparative performance analysis in Greece

This paper compares cross-border acquisition with Greenfield foreign direct investment (FDI). It investigates the impact of these two FDI modes on the long-term performance of foreign subsidiaries. By focusing on the performance of the foreign affiliate, it departs from the rich survival literature and for the first time explores the precise performance of these ventures over a longer period of time. In particular, by drawing on the theory of industrial organization (IO), we empirically examine to which extent the two different forms of market entry help to explain the development of leading positions of affiliates in the host country. Our field research is based on a wide original sample of 179 manufacturing subsidiaries of foreign transnational corporations (TNCs) located in Greece. The econometric results indicate that acquisitions exhibit specific signs of excellence in terms of market share, firm size, capital intensity and product differentiation. We ascertain that at least as far as market share and capital intensity are concerned, the superiority of the cross-border acquisitions rests on both the fact that TNCs are eager to acquire the most efficient firms in the host country, and actively engage in assisting these firms in their up-grading procedures.     

The effect of investor origin on firm performance: Domestic and foreign direct investment in the United States

This paper evaluates the causal relationship between the source of origin of FDI and the performance of the target firm. The empirical analysis uses new data on a comprehensive sample of public U.S. firms that received FDI between 1979 and 2006. To account for the possibility that performance differences arise due to the selection of superior target firm rather than the change in ownership, I use propensity score matching to create similar comparison groups of target firms prior to acquisitions. The analysis reveals three major findings. First, acquiring firms from industrialized countries lead to labor productivity increases of 13% in the target firm three years after the acquisition compared to targets acquired by domestic firms. Firms that received developing country firm acquisitions, on the other hand, exhibit lower labor productivity gains four years after acquisition, compared to targets acquired by domestic firms. Second, targets receiving FDI by firms from industrial and developing countries also experience increases in profits, compared with firms receiving acquisition by domestic firms from the United States. Third, compared with domestic acquisitions, foreign industrial firm acquisition FDI tends to increase their targets' employment and sales, whereas targets acquired by firms located in developing countries experience a decrease in both revenues and total number of employees. These findings suggest that target firms are subject to significantly different restructuring processes depending on the origin of the acquiring firm.     

Outward foreign direct investment of publicly listed firms from China: A corporate governance perspective

This study examines the influence of key corporate governance factors on the internationalization decisions of emerging economy (EE) firms. By integrating the resource-based view and agency theory, it investigates the effects of controlling owner identity, non-controlling shareholder ownership, and the interactions of these with CEO power, in order to reveal their individual and joint effects on the outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) propensity of EE firms. This empirical study of 224 Chinese publicly listed firms found positive effects of ownership of domestic institutional investors and foreign corporations on the OFDI propensity of the firms, which were moderated by the power of the CEOs in these firms.     

The determinants of foreign direct investment in China: The case of Taiwanese firms in the IT industry

This study illustrates the factors that affect a firm's intention to engage in foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, using Taiwanese firms in the Information Technology (IT) sector as an example. By building upon the literature, we investigate a firm's decision to engage in FDI by taking industry and firm factors into consideration. This study applies an event history technique to perform an empirical analysis, taking into account the conditional probability of the element of time. These factors are analyzed in a dynamic context using a sample of 667 Taiwanese firms in 10 industries between 1996 and 2005. We find that network linkages, the expansion of markets, and China's incentive policies positively affect the intention to engage in FDI. A firm with a higher degree of export orientation and larger firm size also has a strong effect on motivating FDI.     

Longitude matters: Time zones and the location of foreign direct investment

Using bilateral foreign direct investment (FDI) data, we find that differences in time zones have a negative and significant effect on the location of FDI. We show that this finding is robust across different specifications, estimation methods and proxies for time zone differences. Time zones also have a negative effect on trade, but this effect is smaller than that on FDI. Finally, the impact of the time zone effect has increased over time, suggesting that it is not likely to vanish with the introduction of new information technologies.     

Spillovers from foreign direct investment and firm growth: technological,financial and market structure effects

This article examines spillover effects from inward investment on domestic firm growth in the case of a developed host country. The emphasis is placed on the role of the technological gap between domestic and foreign firms in identifying the importance of technology diffusion from the presence of multinationals. An augmented production function is employed to account for technological, financial and market structure effects. Based on a sample of 2589 manufacturing firms operating in Greece between 1992 and 1997, the analysis provides evidence that the significance of spillovers varies with the relative technological position of domestic firms and is higher in the middle and upper quantiles of the growth distribution. It was estimated that a unit increase in the foreign presence in Greek industry raises output growth by 7% on average, in a five‐year period, after controlling for technological differences among firms. This result is consistent with the ‘absorptive capacity’ hypothesis that the technological capability of the host country relates positively to FDI spillover benefits.     

The relationship between domestic and outward foreign direct investment: The role of industry-specific effects

Previous research has been inconclusive as regards the effect of outward foreign direct investment (FDI) on domestic investments. In this article, we show that this inconclusiveness can be explained at a disaggregated level as a function of the way industries are organized. Based on a simple theoretical framework including monitoring and trade costs, we argue that a complementary relationship can be expected to prevail in vertically integrated industries, whereas a substitutionary relationship can be expected in horizontally organized production. The empirical analysis confirms a significant difference between the two categories of industry as regards the impact of outward FDI on domestic investment. The results may thus have profound policy implications. JEL no. F12, F21, F23, G34.     

The FDI location decision: Distance and the effects of spatial dependence

We investigate how different conceptions of distance impact upon one of the fundamental decisions made by foreign investors, the choice of foreign direct investment (FDI) location within the selected host country. We argue that the attractiveness of host country locations to foreign investors depends not only upon location-specific attributes such as labor costs, but also upon the location's proximity to alternative locations. We provide theoretical rationales for how and why alternative concepts of distance might impact upon firms’ FDI location decisions, and explicitly model different measures of geographic, economic and administrative distance. Empirically we illustrate the use of a number of spatial regression models with a new dataset on FDI in Chinese prefecture-cities, and have shown, in this context, that geographic distance is not the ‘best’ measure of distance to use. We find clear evidence of spatial dependence between the cities based upon economic distance, with weaker evidence related to administrative distance. The distinctive contribution of this paper is to emphasize that city-level policy to attract FDI is more likely to succeed if the prefecture-city is economically (and administratively) close to alternative city locations, while any policy expenditure may fail to attract FDI inflows if the prefecture-city is distant from other city locations.