Yigang Pan

As China’s economy rose to become the second largest in the world, its institutions did not converge with those of other advanced economies as predicted by many Western observers; instead, China developed a distinct form of state-led capitalism. As a result, how multinational enterprises (MNEs) engage with China’s changing institutional context needs to be revisited. To this end, we review 331 papers on MNE strategies and operations in China published in top international business and management journals between 2001 and 2022. We first introduce the path of institutional change and the opportunities and challenges it created for MNEs in China. We focus on six aspects of MNE strategies and operations: market entry, strategic alliances, innovation and knowledge sharing, global value chain strategies, guanxi and relationship management, and non-market strategies. Our analysis of China’s institutional trajectory and of MNE strategies and operations points to three persistent institutional mechanisms of concern for MNEs: challenges to organizational legitimacy, protection of property rights, and the enabling and directing aspect of institutions created by industrial policies. Insights from this analysis point to future research needs on institutional nonlinearities and discontinuities, linkages between inward and outward investments, and geopolitical influences on national institutions.

Digital platforms, which play increasingly important roles in today’s digitally connected world, are technologically complex and financially costly undertakings. Multinational enterprises (MNEs) devote substantial efforts to deploying and maintaining digital platforms. In this study, we examine the overall time and effort spent by MNEs to develop and operate digital platforms, which we call digital platform attention (DPA). Building on the attention-based view, this study explores the impacts of three distinct dimensions of DPA: intensity, persistence, and scope. Our results suggest that MNEs with more intensive and persistent DPA are more effective in reaching global customers and achieving better international sales, whereas MNEs with a more diversified (i.e., scattered) DPA scope suffer from constrained international sales. The positive impact of DPA intensity and the negative effect of DPA scope on international sales are both weakened when MNEs have geographically remote subsidiaries. Through this research, we enrich the attention-based view literature by not only examining different dimensions of attention but also investigating the interactions between different attention allocation directions. Our research adds novel insights and findings on the role of digital platforms in international business.

We examine social movements that arise from tensions between countries. From a neo-institutional view, we posit that social movements targeting another country generate powerful pressures on firms doing business with the targeted country. Although informal and non-governmental, these pressures may coerce firms into curtailing their business activities with the targeted country. Empirically, we analyzed the 2012 anti-Japanese social movement in China using a panel dataset of Chinese-listed firms from 2006 to 2017. Through a quasi-experimental design and difference-in-difference method, we found that this social movement was associated with a significant reduction in Chinese firms’ import from Japan, as well as export and FDI activities. Furthermore, we found that animosity against the targeted country and firms’ network connectivity exacerbated this effect, while firms’ political capital weakened it. We also found that the impact of this social movement existed for four years after the movement subsided. We contribute by showing that social movements have significant impacts on firms’ international business activities. Firms need to pay attention to informal pressures from social movements, and proactively adapt their cross-border business activities. In today’s digital era, opinions and sentiments can quickly snowball into massive collective forces in the virtual and actual worlds.

Many multinational corporations (MNCs) operate multiple subsidiaries in a foreign country. Drawing upon literature of organizational network and business group, we hypothesize that the number of subsidiaries of an MNC has an impact on subsidiary financial performance in China. We further hypothesized two moderating effects, namely subsidiary’s country of origin and subsidiary size. The results show that subsidiary grouping effect is more salient for subsidiaries from Japan and South Korea, and that larger subsidiaries are less affected by the subsidiary grouping effect. Our empirical results were based on a sample of 40,315 MNC subsidiaries in China. The findings underscore the importance of group-based competitive advantages of MNC subsidiaries in international business.

This study examines the impact of distance on financial performance of multinational enterprise (MNE) subsidiaries in China. We hypothesized and found that MNE subsidiaries performed better when located closer to the country’s business hub, but performed less well when located closer to the political hub. We also hypothesized that distance effects are moderated by subsidiary size, subsidiary network, and state capital contribution to subsidiary. Our findings were based upon 45,248 MNE subsidiaries with location and geographic distance measured at the prefectural level in China.

The study conceptualizes how firms’ strategic motives interact with the heterogeneity of host country institutional environments in determining the subsidiary ownership. The author hypothesizes and tests two interaction effects. The study found that firms with market-seeking motives are more affected by the heterogeneity of host country institutional environments, while firms with resource-seeking motives are less affected by the heterogeneity. The empirical findings are based on a sample of overseas subsidiaries reported in the annual reports of listed firms in China.

Recent studies show that large multinational enterprises (MNEs) adopt an organizational unit, called host-country headquarters (HCHQ), in key foreign countries (Ma and Delios, 2010; Ma, Delios and Lau, 2013). In this study, we examine the factors that are associated with the establishment of an HCHQ by US firms in China. We hypothesize that an HCHQ is associated with both firm-specific factors and host country-specific factors. We find that an HCHQ is associated with the firm’s scope diversification and degree of internationalization, and the strategic importance of foreign host country and subsidiary diversification in that host country. The findings are based on archival data of U.S. Fortune 500 firms. The findings add to the understanding of an important organizational structure of large U.S. firms in China, and possibly to MNE structures more widely in key foreign countries.

The level of ownership in an overseas subsidiary has been an important issue in international business. Existing literature, based on transaction cost theory, predicts that firms prefer higher ownership for subsidiaries located in favorable foreign institutional environments. We propose two moderating factors to this prediction: governments as owners of firms and firms’ legislative connections. We hypothesized that the level of subsidiary ownership was less affected by the heterogeneity of foreign institutional environments for firms with a higher level of government ownership and for firms with legislative connections. These two interaction effects were tested using a sample of overseas subsidiaries documented in the 2010 annual reports of listed Chinese firms. The empirical findings provide robust support for the hypothesized effects. This study offers fresh insight on the role of government and political factors in firms’ internationalization activities.