Are foreign banks sure winners in post-WTO China?

Five years following China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), foreign banks are scheduled to be granted full access to the country's vast local currency in December 2006. The foreign banks' competitive attributes, such as size and international banking experience, have facilitated their entry into China. These efforts, however, have been countered by the improving competitiveness of Chinese banks. Further prompted by high entry and operating costs in Renminbi (Rmb) business, foreign banks have engaged in different strategic responses to these challenges. All things considered, it is envisaged that only a very small number of foreign banks will be able to emerge as big players in the Chinese banking market.     

Outward Foreign Direct Investment by Chinese National Oil Companies

Developed countries have become increasingly suspicious about the rapid growth of Chinese investments in their home countries and abroad, commonly citing potential threats to national security and global governance as the main sources of anxieties. As a result, policy measures in some developed markets have been put in place to create additional regulation and oversight, specifically in highly regulated and strategic industries, such as the oil sector. This article refutes a number of popular myths about Chinese investments in the global oil industry, and suggests a more rigorous dialogue with the Chinese authorities relating to their integration into international institutions.     

Chinese cross‐border mergers and acquisitions in the developing world: Is Africa unique?

China has emerged as an important partner for Africa. Not surprisingly, Chinese business and investment relations with Africa have been growing. This article contends that Africa offers a different proposition to Chinese business interests in non‐African developing economies. In this optic, it takes a “comparative” institution‐based view treating factors that determine Chinese multinationals' cross‐border merger and acquisition (CBMA) decisions as comparatively different for Africa to the rest of the developing world. From a panel data estimation of the number of Chinese CBMAs from 2007 to 2016, we find among market size, natural resources, strategic assets, labor productivity, and institutional governance, only natural resources and market size have a distinctive effect, with Chinese investors being more attracted to African natural resources than the African market. The drive for natural resources provides impetus for Chinese MNEs to choose CBMAs over greenfield investment, and through majority ownership to exercise control. Our inference is that Africa is “significantly” different from other developing regions, in terms of CBMAs, as Chinese multinationals have a strong motive to control access to natural resources.     

Entry mode choice of Chinese enterprises: The impacts of country risk, cultural distance and their interactions

Recent years have witnessed a phenomenal growth in the number of Chinese enterprises “going global.” Drawing on three leading theoretical perspectives including the transaction cost theory, organizational capability theory and eclectic theory, this paper develops hypotheses to test how country risk and cultural distance are associated with entry mode choices of enterprises from China. Based on a sample of 167 Chinese companies, an empirical investigation has been conducted employing logistic regression and hierarchical regression analyses. Our results show that country risk and cultural distance have significant impact on entry mode choice. With the increase of country risk or cultural distance, businesses prefer non-ownership-based entry modes such as trade and licensing. However, entry mode choice is also noticeably influenced by the interaction between country risk and cultural distance, which is a new finding of international entry mode research. Furthermore, private enterprises are more likely to adopt high-involvement entry mode than the state-owned enterprises, and service enterprises are less likely to use high-involvement entry mode, which suggests that different approaches are used to deal with country risk and cultural distance by various types of enterprises.     

The Role of Small Firms in the Technology Development of China

Science & Technology (S&T) is high on the Chinese policy agenda and the country aims at becoming an innovation‐driven economy. Small firms have been important in technology development in other East Asian countries but the situation in Chinese small firms has been far less explored. We examine how much S&T has been accounted for by small firms and how their S&T intensity differs across industries and ownership groups. We also analyse how various firm characteristics differ over size categories and S&T status. This study is based on newly processed micro‐level data provided by the National Bureau of Statistics with information on a large number of S&T indicators for manufacturing firms in China in 2000 and 2004. Our results suggest that the role of small firms in Chinese S&T is similar to that in many other countries. They account for a comparably small share of total S&T and most small firms are not engaged in any S&T. However, those small firms that do engage in S&T tend to be more S&T intensive and have a higher output in terms of patents than larger Chinese S&T firms.     

The Influence of Native Versus Foreign Language on Chinese Subjects’ Aggressive Financial Reporting Judgments

Researchers have suggested that ethical judgments about “right” and “wrong” are the result of deep and thoughtful principles and should therefore be consistent and not influenced by factors, such as language (Costa et al. in PLoS ONE 9(4):e94842, 2014b, p. 1). As long as an ethical scenario is understood, individuals’ resolution should not depend on whether the ethical scenario is presented in their native language or in a foreign language. Given the forces of globalization and international convergence, an increasing number of accountants and accounting students are becoming proficient in more than one language, and they are required to interpret and apply complex ethical pronouncements issued by various global standard setters both in their native language and in English. There have been calls in the literature to examine whether subjects make systematically different ethical judgments in a foreign language than in their native language. We contribute to the literature by drawing on culture, linguistics, and psychology research to provide empirical evidence that Chinese subjects are more aggressive in interpreting the concept of control when providing their consolidation reporting recommendations in English than in Simplified Chinese. We applied a 2 × 2 within-subject and between-subject randomized experimental design using a sample of Chinese final year undergraduate accounting students at a leading Chinese university, where accounting courses are taught in both Simplified Chinese and English. Students in our study are proxy for entry-level accounting practitioners. Our findings have implications for the globalized business world and cross-cultural research by challenging the commonly held assumption that an individual’s ethical judgment is consistent in different languages. We suggest that systematically different ethical judgments in native and foreign languages needs to be recognized.     

Do indigenous firms incur a liability of localness when operating in their home market? The case of China

Liability of foreignness has been one of the building blocks of theories of multinational enterprises. This paper looks at a parallel issue – the liability of localness that local firms may face as a result of foreign firms’ presence in their country. The results show that local Chinese firms enjoy location-based advantages over their foreign counterparts and these, together with their firm-specific advantages, have significant positive effects on their performance. The superior firm-specific advantages of foreign firms appear to erase the magnitude of such effects and create a significant negative impact on local Chinese firms’ performance, and this effect is heightened by foreign firms’ multinationality advantages. The research suggests that local Chinese firms incur a liability of localness, and the extent of the negative impact of such liability on local firm performance is largely dependent on the relative strength of various advantages that the local and foreign firms possess.     

Japan's Role in China's Economic Transformation Since 1978

Since the initiation of the open door policy in 1978, the Chinese leaders have sought trade with and investment from advanced countries, including Japan, which has been a major trading partner since the 1960s. Much of Japan's investment to date, however, has been indirect, through govern ment loans for sectors like infrastructure. Major Japanese manufacturers are just beginning to invest heavily in China. In their relationship with China, the Japanese have the advantage of shared cultural heritage, geographical proximity and economic complementarity. In addition, in order to effect the transition from a command to a market economy, the Chinese have sought to follow, where appropriate, Japanese practices in such areas as enterprise reform, taxation and the training of managers. Japanese investors are encouraged by low labour costs and a growing Chinese domestic market but inhibited by such factors as low skill levels and poor infrastructure. Finally, China and Japan are set to become major players in the Asia-Pacific region, whether in competition or cooperation.     

入世二十年外资零售企业在中国的发展趋势变化：影响因素与经验证据

截至2021年底，中国加入世界贸易组织已满二十年，外资零售企业在中国市场上经历了“先升后降”的发展过程，并出现了退出市场的现象。文章以产业组织理论的基本框架为指导，分阶段对影响外资商业发展水平的因素进行检验。结果表明：中国庞大的潜在市场始终是影响外资商业进入的主要因素；外资零售企业在中国市场上存在一定的区域差异，且区域间的影响因素的作用效果不同；电子商务等零售业创新发展方式的普及对外资商业在中国零售市场上的经营产生了较大的负面影响，外资零售巨头在此轮产业调整中受到了冲击，并开始了经营方式的调整与店面的收缩。     

Organizational Learning in China: The Role of Returners

ABSTRACT

The Chinese authorities have launched a range of policies and incentives at the national and regional level to attract citizens who have studied and worked abroad to return in order to contribute to upgrading the competitiveness of the Chinese economy, particularly in light of China's entrance to the World Trade Organization. In other words, the returners are expected to stimulate organizational learning in existing organizations and in new companies. This article provides an overview of what has been done to date and points out that simply increasing the number of returners is not enough to achieve organizational learning. Drawing on research findings about the barriers to organizational learning from returned expatriate managers in international companies, the article develops recommendations for government policies, corporate strategies, and Chinese returners.     

民营资本旅游投资行为引导与规范对策研究

我国旅游业已经形成了很大的产业规模,其资本结构已由“全民”主宰演化成多种经济成分并存,民营企业投资旅游已成为一支新生力量。民营企业具有机制灵活等优势,但也存在投资无序性、效率低、不注重环境效益等问题。政府部门应从宏观上对民营企业的旅游投资行为进行引导与规范,对其开发项目进行环保影响评估,认真搞好社会公共协调等配套服务,促进民营旅游业健康发展。     

Using social and economic incentives to discourage Chinese suppliers from product adulteration

The American public raised serious concerns about product safety in 2007, when the number of product recalls broke a new record. Following a temporary drop in 2008, both the number and retail value of recalled units have been increasing, despite various efforts exerted by government agencies and private companies to combat this trend. Currently, many countries—including China itself—are expressing serious concern over adulterated or unsafe food made or sold in China. What are the underlying reasons for some Chinese suppliers to adulterate product? When law enforcement is still weak in China, what can western manufacturers do to reduce the risk of product adulteration? To develop effective deterrence mechanisms, we first identify four underlying factors that create incentives for some Chinese suppliers to produce unsafe products. Then we propose ideas to discourage Chinese suppliers from producing adulterated products based on two underlying strategies: (1) creating economic incentives through contingent payments, and (2) creating a social incentive by threatening public exposure through the power of the Internet and social networking sites.     

我国数字键盘汉字输入技术的现状和发展机遇

一直以来．我国数字键盘汉字输入技术和市场主要由国外公司垄断．目前各大手机厂商普遍应用的汉字输入技术都是国外知识产权的技术．没有自主知识产权、资金缺乏等问题均长期困扰着我国数字键盘汉字输入技术的开发与推广。随着我国手机用户的快速增长和手机短量及短信业务以惊人的速度发展．数字键盘汉字输入技术的现状和问题已引起国家越来越多的关注和重视．目前我国正在制定有关数字键盘汉字输入的技术标准,手机数字键盘汉字输入法迎来了前所未有的发展机遇。     

我国的互联网彩票：经营模式、发展策略与管制框架

彩票存在问题赌博、未成年人参赌、犯罪以及贫困问题等负外部性,需要政府的严格管制。我国互联网彩票一直采用竞争性经营模式,妨碍政府进行有效管制。我国应当采取垄断性经营模式,仅允许一至两家公司经营互联网彩票。同时,对互联网彩票发展采取谨慎而不是自由放任的态度,制定渐进展开、分阶段实施的互联网彩票发展战略,注意与实体投注店的分工合作,并对购彩者采取适当的保护措施。对于互联网彩票公司及相关人员,实行行政许可,督促其建立健全内部控制,并对其进行经常性的评估、检验。     

中国品牌国际化面对的难题及策略

以海尔为代表的中国一大批企业在创建国际品牌方面都取得了瞩目的成绩,给中国其他企业进行品牌国际化战略提供了宝贵的学习经验。本文分析了中国企业在品牌国际化过程中遇到的难题,并对中国企业在品牌国际化过程中应采取的策略进行了重点研究。     

Ethical Beliefs of Chinese Consumers in Hong Kong

In recent years, there has been increased awareness of unethical consumer practices in Asian countries. Asian consumers have gained a bad reputation for buying counterfeit products, such as computer software, fashion clothing and watches. In 1993, the estimated losses to US software companies due to Chinese counterfeiting stood at US $322 million (Kohut, 1994). The present study uses a consumer ethics scale developed by Muncy and Vitell (1992) to investigate consumers' ethical judgments from a Chinese perspective. The result shows that consumers in different cultures utilize similar rules to assess the ethicality of a given situation. However, findings also show certain cultural elements that are unique in influencing Chinese consumers' ethical judgments. The results also indicate the need for the continued development of and investment in consumer education in Asia.     

我国沿边口岸经济特殊性分析及发展建议

20世纪90年代后,我国沿边口岸经济快速发展,但是至今没有成为带动沿边地区经济发展的增长极.当前,新的经济形势对我国沿边口岸经济的发展提出了新的要求,在制定沿边开放和发展政策措施时,应充分认识到沿边口岸经济的特殊性,具体包括由地理区位引发的特殊性和在经济发展过程中表现出的特殊性,前者包括受地缘的影响显著、处于经济势能凹陷区、与对应口岸荣衰与共、效率取决于双边的协调等,后者包括第三产业占比过高但现代服务业匮乏、边境贸易“两头在外”、交通等基础设施落后等.为此,在发展口岸经济过程中应促进我国与周边邻国的区域经济一体化、确定适合沿边口岸经济发展的模式、改变沿边口岸的基础设施,并大力发展第二产业,推动口岸经济可持续发展.     

Performance of China’s advertising agencies: a time series cross-sectional analysis

Although China has been the world’s second largest advertising market after the United States in terms of advertising spending since 2006, the performance of advertising agencies in China and the factors that contribute to this performance have been understudied. However, by incorporating the structure-conduct-performance model and agency theory into the integrative framework and conducting a time series cross-sectional analysis, we determine that the degree of concentration in the advertising agency industry and number of regulations in the advertising industry have had significant negative effects on the financial performance of agencies. In addition, agencies with mainly foreign capital have performed better than those with only Chinese capital. Agencies adopting strategies of initial public offering (IPOs) or engaging in name changes and mergers have performed better than those that have done nothing. Implications are also discussed.     

Transformation and Rebirth of Chinese Brands: A Case From the Hotel Industry

ABSTRACT

Chinese domestic brands have developed rapidly in recent years, and yet few of them have entered global competition as product or service brands brands with exceptions such as Huawei. In addition, the evolution of Chinese brands has hardly been understood or introduced properly by international business educators. In this article, we identify the development patterns of Chinese domestic brands by using a local hotel brand as an example. Particularly, we examine and discuss how a Chinese brand can be established with specific positioning, brand image, and product offering, as well as how the brand can grow by vertical and horizontal extensions based on balancing market opportunities and the brand’s own capabilities. Moreover, we expect this research to facilitate the understanding of Chinese brands among international business education.     

Explaining technological innovation in Chinese enterprises: Insights from technological entrepreneurship

The transformation of China into an innovation-oriented nation is now topping the agenda of Chinese government. Technological innovation is seen at the heart of this transformation, and enterprises have been called the key driving force of the innovation process. However, what are the key ingredients for such a transformation to occur? And are Chinese enterprises ready to fulfil this new responsibility? Drawing on the concept of technological entrepreneurship, this paper intends to explain technological innovation in Chinese enterprises, and attempts to develop an integrative view for research in this field, especially as related to the questions asked above.