State ownership of Chinese firms and their outward foreign direct investment: Political and economic contingencies

The extant literature offers inconsistent predictions and conflicting evidence regarding the relationship between state ownership and the internationalization of emerging market firms (EMFs). Drawing on institutional theory, we examine the moderating roles of political and economic institutions at the subnational and national levels in the link between state ownership and EMFs’ outward foreign direct investment (OFDI). Based on a sample of 1421 OFDI projects involving 286 Chinese listed firms in 115 host countries between 2003 and 2016, we find that state ownership can scale up OFDI when Chinese firms are headquartered in subnational regions with high institutional development or low economic development, or when political relationships between home and host countries are amicable or market growth in a host country is slow; otherwise, state ownership hinders OFDI. These findings offer new insights into the relationship between state ownership and the internationalization of EMFs.

     

State equity and outward FDI under the theme of belt and road initiative

State capitalism is attracting burgeoning attention but comes with inconsistent findings toward internationalization. Given its prevalent appearances, the study has investigated the effect of state equity on outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which may constitute a challenge to the international business theory and new hope for companies in emerging economies. Anchoring on the agentic perspective of institutional theory and a sample of Chinese public listed firms, we have unveiled that higher state equity pushes greater proactiveness in investing in those BRI destinations. However, state equity generates stronger pushing effects when the equity source is not from the central government whereas the organizational top managers’ foreign exposures attenuate such pressures. At the institutional level, furthermore, the coastal locale attenuates the effects of such pressures whereas firms are more likely to invest in countries with bilateral investment treaties (BITs) under the BRI theme. Overall, the study should extend our understandings toward the BRI phenomenon and enrich the theoretical knowledge of state capitalism from a political perspective.

     

Behind organizational slack and firm performance in China: The moderating roles of ownership and competitive intensity

Extensive studies of the organizational slack–performance relationship offer mixed findings in developed economies while little research attends to transition economies. Replicating and extending earlier work by Tan and Peng (2003), this study examines the relationship between organizational slack and firm performance in China and focuses on the moderating effects of firm ownership and competitive intensity. Empirical findings based on longitudinal data from 60,945 firms during 1998–2002 suggest that the impact of organizational slack on performance is stronger for private enterprises than for SOEs and foreign-invested enterprises. Furthermore, industry competitive intensity positively moderates the effect of organizational slack on performance. In a three-way interaction effect, the moderating effect of competitive intensity on the organizational slack–performance relationship is weaker in SOEs than in private enterprises and foreign invested enterprises.     

Behind M&;As in China and the United States: Networks,learning, and institutions

Few scholars would dispute the argument that mergers and acquisitions (M&As) are different in China and the United States, but we know little about how they differ. This article reports one of the first studies that systematically compares and contrasts how M&As differ in these two countries. While prior research on M&As tends to emphasize economic and financial explanations while treating firms as atomistic actors severed from their institutional and network relations, we develop a new theoretical framework based on relational, behavioral, and institutional perspectives. We not only consider firms as learning actors embedded in network relations, but also compare and contrast their M&A patterns between China and the United States, two distinctive institutional contexts. We find that both a firm’s structural hole position and its learning orientation (exploration/exploitation) in alliances have direct and joint impacts on subsequent M&As. Further, such impacts differ across the two countries, due to their institutional disparities.     

中国反倾销与对华直接投资相关性实证研究

反倾销是目前研究的热点之一,本文从中国反倾销与外商对华直接投资相关性这个角度,利用企业水平的模型进行回归实证分析,并结合案例,得出中国反倾销与外商对华直接投资之间存在正的相关性。结果表明,中国的反倾销会引起外商对华直接投资的增加,特别是跨国公司对华直接投资的增加。     

我国企业FDI路径选择与“差异化的同时并进”模式

中国企业在跨国发展中应该如何走出去、走到哪里,是研究者和实践者共同关注的问题。本文从顺梯度和逆梯度FDI的对比分析和相关理论阐述中,剖析了中国企业在海外投资流向上的难与易问题的实质和两者之间的时空关系,进而提出综合了现行的先难后易和先易后难两种路径选择的一种新型的跨国企业FDI模式,即差异化的同时并进模式。在引入卓越中心概念来界定新FDI模式的内涵后,具体从四个方面对其独特性进行了阐释。     

Economic and strategic considerations surrounding Chinese FDI in the United States

The growth of outward investment from China has generated expressions of concern from policymakers in the United States regarding the economic and national security impacts of such investments. While inward foreign direct investment (FDI) has come to be viewed by most observers as generally imparting net economic benefits to the host economy, acquisitions of US companies by Chinese multinational companies (MNCs) have been criticized on several grounds. One is based on the mode of entry itself: some critics believe that entry by acquisition brings lower benefits than greenfield entry. A second and more prominent concern is that acquisitions of US companies by Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) may be motivated by non-commercial objectives which, in turn, make those acquisitions of questionable value to the host economy. In this paper, we argue that Chinese FDI in the United States is more likely to take the form of acquisitions than greenfield investments for the foreseeable future. However, there is no strong case to be made that the host country economic benefits from Chinese FDI would be larger if entry took place primarily through greenfield investments. Furthermore, most of the alleged costs to the US economy from inward FDI from China are either unlikely to occur or are already anticipated by existing US laws and regulations, thus necessitating no additional, specific legislation.

中国企业FDI区位选择：理论研究与实证分析

经济、社会高度发展的30年来,中国的综合国力有了显著增强,企业对外FDI的兴趣和行动不断增加,如何找到合适的投资区位已成为亟待研究的课题。理论界对FDI区位选择的研究早已有之,从Hymer的垄断优势理论到Kojima的比较优势理论,从针对发展中国家的“小规模技术模型”到对“逆向投资”现象的研究等等。文章梳理了区位选择理论的发展沿革,归纳了相关实证研究,并回顾了我国企业的对外投资实践,提出了我国企业对外FDI应借鉴创新升级理论的观点,摒弃进军大国的思路,而选择与我国贸易联系紧密、GDP总量达到一定规模、政治经济稳定、“心理距离”短的周边国家。     

Chinese institutions and standardization: The case of government support to domestic third generation cellular standard

There are unique and distinct institutional processes associated with the Chinese government's support of the domestically developed third generation (3G) cellular standard, TD-SCDMA. After postponing several times, China awarded three third generation cellular licenses in January 2009: a TD-SCDMA license to China Mobile, a CDMA 2000 license to China Telecom and a WCDMA license to China Unicom. The Chinese government has demonstrated a clear bias in favor of TD-SCDMA. This article examines the role of formal and informal institutions in shaping the Chinese 3G landscape. This paper makes two contributions to the literature. First, this work extends studies on institutional theory focusing on standardization to the context of China. Second, unlike most ICT research which deals with standards originated in the West, this paper's focus on developing country-originated standard provides novel and unique insights related to institutional processes.     

Media ownership and communications: Enriching the research agenda

This paper examines whether diverse opinions make their way into the communication policy decisions. Specifically, it examines whether academics from distinct disciplines engage one another and whether Federal Communications Commission (FCC) experts rely on a multidisciplinary body of research in making telecommunications-related decisions. After tracing how narrow expertise can lead to shallow policy perspectives, the paper employs a social network analysis of citations to assess the breadth of the media ownership debate. The case of media ownership was considered a worthy choice for analysis because it was so high on the policy agenda. The paper found that the media ownership policy network is extremely hierarchical; it comprises relatively few connected members around which clusters form and the majority of communication takes place. Lacking overlap among subgroups, there is very little interaction across disciplinary boundaries. An analysis of FCC citations demonstrates the impact that the dominant journals have on the FCC decision-making process, with significant implications for FCC decision making in all aspects of telecommunications.     

中国企业对俄直接投资的产业选择研究

虽然近几年中国企业对俄直接投资快速增长,但与双边贸易相比规模不大,仍处在起步阶段,如何促进中国企业对俄直接投资成为当前迫切需要解决的重大问题。从产业的角度来看,当前中国对俄直接投资不合理的产业分布是导致中国企业对俄直接投资的效率与效益低下的重要原因。因此,本文深入研究中国企业对俄直接投资的产业选择问题,提出了相应的产业选择基准,确定了中国企业对俄投资的产业方向并加以引导,以促进中国对俄直接投资的快速增长。     

Epochs and institutions: contextualizing business process re-engineering

Capitalism is currently undergoing an epochal change. The associated corporate change is sticky for reasons of institutional inertia. Business process re-engineering is a corporate response which should be understood in technical, social and political terms. Core elements of BPR are identified, illustrated, and critiqued, partly through a BPR case researched by the authors.     

Employee share ownership and job attitudes: The effects of share sale

Although the association between employee share ownership and job attitudes has been documented in the literature, little attention has been paid to the association with share sale. This study uses discriminant analysis, based on selected job attitudes, to generate a function to distinguish between employees who were or were not shareholders in a large financial institution. The discriminant function was then used to classify those employees who had been shareholders but who had subsequently sold their shares. The evidence indicated that those who had sold their shares had similar job attitudes to existing shareholders and dramatically different job attitudes from those who had never purchased shares. Conjectural insights are offered into the original effect of share purchase on job attitudes.     

Cooperatives in Bolivia: Customer ownership of the local loop

Cooperatives have been used by the inhabitants in rural areas to gain access to telecommunications. In Bolivia and Finland, for example, consumer cooperatives have been for many years the only mechanism to provide local telecommunication services to the whole country. This paper studies the effects of the Bolivian market's structure on the development of competition as well as on universal access and service policies. It argues that some cooperatives after the liberalisation of the market are not helping to develop competition. Cooperatives may have incentives to increase the interconnection charges that they receive from long distance firms to cross-subsidise the prices of local calls. Moreover, as some cooperatives have entered the long distance market, they may try to restrict competition through collusive agreements. Finally, the paper suggests that the excessive price of the cooperatives’ shares may have damaged the possibility of reaching a higher penetration level and greater coverage in rural areas.     

Asset specificity and complementarity and MNE ownership strategies: The role of institutional distances

This study integrates transaction cost economics and institutional theory to propose a contingency model of multinational enterprises' design of ownership control. We posit that asset specificity and complementarity influence the design of ownership control, which is further affected by the institutional environment. Furthermore, we argue that regulatory distance and normative distance display differentiating moderations on the main effects. Regulatory distance strengthens the positive effect of asset specificity on ownership control while normative distance enhances the negative effect of asset complementarity on ownership control.     

制造业外资进入与市场势力波动:竞争还是垄断

对外资市场效应的评估和计量是处理好外资政策、产业政策和反垄断政策关系的重要问题。本文采用中国1999—2010年28个两位数和447个四位数代码制造业面板数据,首先估计了两位数代码制造业的市场势力水平,然后进一步考察外资进入的市场效应,并测度外资引致的福利变动。研究表明:制造业各行业存在显著的市场势力,但金融危机前后市场势力溢价水平波动较大。全样本结果显示制造业市场势力溢价约为6.2%,但金融危机前样本证实市场势力溢价高达22.1%。细分产业中,外资的竞争效应占主导,但在部分产业中外资表现出了反竞争效应。制造业总体层面上,外资进入与市场势力波动之间呈现U形非线性关系,拐点稳定在外资比重为47.3%—54.0%的区间内。从福利角度看,外资进入的竞争效应,使得垄断带来的无谓损失减少了3334.70亿元;但FDI的反竞争效应使得相应行业垄断福利损失增加2407.45亿元。     

包装工业发展对自然生态资源的影响

本文介绍了我国包装工业发展的现状与特点，分析了包装工业对自然资源的利用影响与国民经济发展之间的关系，着重强调了包装生产对自然资源的消耗与利用，对生态环境的影响，提出我国包装尖与自然生态环境之间协调发展。     

FDI的地区聚集及其空间演化--以江苏为例的研究

外商直接投资(FDI)在空间分布上有特定的规律，形成地区性聚集是绝大多数外资企业的归宿。在聚集的空间演化过程中，FDI呈现出扩散和聚集的不同历史特征。本文以江苏省FDI的历史数据为样本，分析FDI聚集过程的空间演化模式。加总的数据分析显示，FDI的空间分布经历了随机扩散—扩散向聚集转化—聚集的三个演化阶段；行业层面的进一步考察显示，传统行业由最初的聚集逐渐向扩散演化，而新兴行业则由最初的随机分布逐渐向聚集演化。回归分析证明，成本因素、聚集经济的外部性和路径依赖作用在空间演化过程中起到了决定性的作用。