This study investigates the determinants of Chinese outward direct investment (ODI) and the extent to which three special explanations (capital market imperfections, special ownership advantages and institutional factors) need to be nested within the general theory of the multinational firm. We test our hypotheses using official Chinese ODI data collected between 1984 and 2001. We find Chinese ODI to be associated with high levels of political risk in, and cultural proximity to, host countries throughout, and with host market size and geographic proximity (1984 to 1991) and host natural resources endowments (1992 to 2001). We find strong support for the argument that aspects of the special theory help to explain the behaviour of Chinese MNEs.

This is a repository copy of A retrospective and agenda for future research on Chinese outward foreign direct investment.

No abstract

Studies of how firms respond to host country risk have assigned explanatory primacy to organizational capability and managerial risk preference. The organization-level account is built on the premise that capability is a prerequisite for risk-taking while the individual-level account focuses on the managers' intrinsic behavioral attitude. Without integrating one with the other, the former is open to many alternative explanations while the latter remains only a source of heterogeneity. We propose that employing the microfoundations approach can address the limitations of each account and yield a fuller understanding of FDI risk-taking. Drawing upon behavioral decision theory and the concept of risk propensity, we describe the lower-level mechanisms that generate the empirical regularity between firm experience and risk-taking, which has been attributed to the macro-level capabilities paradigm. We finalize the framework with an account as to how individual-level mechanisms can be incorporated into the context of organizational strategic decision-making.

This is a repository copy of Risk propensity in the foreign direct investment location decision of emerging multinationals.