A retrospective and agenda for future research on Chinese outward foreign direct investment

Our original paper “The determinants of Chinese Outward Foreign Direct Investment” was the first theoretically based empirical analysis of the phenomenon. It utilised internalisation theory to show that Chinese state-owned firms reacted to home country market imperfections to surmount barriers to foreign entry arising from naivety and the lack of obvious ownership advantages, leveraging institutional factors including favourable policy stimuli. This special theory explained outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) but provided surprises. These included the apparent appetite for risk evinced by these early investors, causing us to conjecture that domestic market imperfections, particularly in the domestic capital market, might be responsible. The article stimulated a massive subsequent, largely successful, research effort on emerging country multinationals. In this Retrospective article we review some of the main strands of research that ensued, for the insight they offer for the theme of our commentary. Our theme is that theoretical development can only come through embracing yet more challenging, different, and new contexts, and we make suggestions for future research directions

Photo-bleaching of self-trapped holes in Si02 glass

Photo-induced bleaching of self-trapped holes (STH) in UV-irradiated synthetic silica has been investigated by the electron spin resonance method. We have observed two kinds of STH, STH1 and STH2 as assigned by Griscom in Ref. [D.L. Griscom, Phys. Rev.

Energy levels of self-trapped holes in amorphous SiO2: fictive temperature dependence

Fictive temperature (Tf) dependence of self-trapped holes (STHs) in low temperature UV-irradiated silica glasses was systematically investigated by the electron spin resonance (ESR) method. The decay of the ESR signals was found to be bleaching photon energy dependent and to follow the stretched exponential decay function at each bleaching wavelength. When the one-photon process is dominant during the photo-bleaching process, where the recombination of electrons excited from the valence band with the holes in the STH band results in the decay of STH signals, the energy levels of STH1 were thus derived at 1.75 0.02 eV, 1.61 0.03 eV, 1.45 0.05 eV and STH2 at 1.68 0.02 eV, 1.44 0.02 eV, 1.25 0.04 eV, respectively, for Tf = 1500, 1350 and 1200 °C samples