Determinants of Entrepreneurial Activities in China

The institutional environment – including protection of private properties and contract enforcement – has been rather unfavorable for the emergence and development of China’s private enterprises. This is in sharp contrast to the case of the developed economies where the institutional environment is conductive to the entrepreneurial activities and only the personal attributes of would-be entrepreneurs determine their entrepreneurship decision. We thus propose a theoretical framework for the entrepreneurship decision in China with a focus on the role of institutional environment. Using a life-histories survey data of 2,854 respondents from twenty cities in China, we find strong support for the impacts of the institutional environment and its interactions with other determinants of entrepreneurship decision.

Pure Exporter: Theory and Evidence

This paper provides the first evidence about pure exporters (i.e., firms exporting all of their output to the foreign market) -- a phenomenon overlooked and cannot be explained in the existing literature. It then offers a generalized model of Melitz (2003) for examining the existence and behavior of pure exporters. In particular, pure exporters arise when the export market is sufficiently large -- a situation more likely to hold in developing countries as opposed to large developed countries; and their productivity levels are above those of non-exporters, but below those of firms having both domestic sales and export. These theoretical predictions are borne out in a data of Chinese manufacturing firms for the period of 1998-2005.Pure Exporter, Firm Heterogeneity, Exporting Behavior

How Does Privatization Work in China?

Using a comprehensive panel data set of China’s state-owned enterprises, we investigate the impacts of privatization, of different time sequences and extent of non-state ownership, on social welfare and firm performance. Attention has been focused on the sources of gain in firm performance and the long-run impacts of privatization. It is found that the privatization of China’s state-owned enterprises was achieved with limited compromise on social welfare responsibilities, and significant gain in firm performance was obtained by motivating the management and reducing agency cost at the management level.

Impacts of Competitive Position on Export Propensity and Intensity: An Empirical Study of Manufacturing Firms in China

We examine the impacts of competitive industry position on firms’ export propensity and intensity in China. Drawing on the resource-based view and the structure-conduct-performance paradigm of firm behavior, we investigate whether firms with competitive industry position through cost leadership or differentiation strategy have different export behaviors. We use a longitudinal data of 213,662 manufacturing firms in China from 1998 to 2005 to show that firms that have developed competitive advantages in the domestic market are more likely to export and have higher levels of export intensity. Indigenous and foreign manufacturing firms exhibit different patterns of export behaviors. Foreign firms with differentiation advantages focus on local market expansion instead of seeking opportunity in export markets.

International experience and FDI location choices of Chinese firms:The moderating effects of home country government support and host country institutions

We examine the extent to which Chinese government support of foreign direct investment (FDI) projects and host country institutional environments interact with prior entry experience by Chinese firms, and how this interrelationship affects FDI undertaken by Chinese firms. We hypothesize that home country government support and well-established host country institutions enhance organizational capabilities to take risks in FDI. As such, they reduce the need to accumulate experiential knowledge and capabilities relating to entering host countries based on prior entry experience in a particular country when undertaking follow-up investment projects. Using a unique, hand-collected panel data set of Chinese publicly listed firms during 2002?2009, we find that home government support and well-developed host country institutions reduce the importance of prior entry experience and significantly increase the likelihood of FDI entry into a host country. Further, from our subsample analyses we identify differences between entering developed and developing host countries in terms of the impact of home country government support and quality of host country institutions. Our findings help explain the puzzle concerning why emerging economy firms have rapidly internationalized in a short period of time and do not follow the pattern predicted by classical IB theories

Pure Exporter: Theory and Evidence

This paper provides the first evidence about pure exporters (i.e., firms exporting all of their output to the foreign market) -- a phenomenon overlooked and cannot be explained in the existing literature. It then offers a generalized model of Melitz (2003) for examining the existence and behavior of pure exporters. In particular, pure exporters arise when the export market is sufficiently large -- a situation more likely to hold in developing countries as opposed to large developed countries; and their productivity levels are above those of non-exporters, but below those of firms having both domestic sales and export. These theoretical predictions are borne out in a data of Chinese manufacturing firms for the period of 1998-2005

Pure Exporter: Theory and Evidence

This paper provides the first evidence about pure exporters (i.e., firms exporting all of their output to the foreign market) -- a phenomenon overlooked and cannot be explained in the existing literature. It then offers a generalized model of Melitz (2003) for examining the existence and behavior of pure exporters. In particular, pure exporters arise when the export market is sufficiently large -- a situation more likely to hold in developing countries as opposed to large developed countries; and their productivity levels are above those of non-exporters, but below those of firms having both domestic sales and export. These theoretical predictions are borne out in a data of Chinese manufacturing firms for the period of 1998-2005

Top executive compensation, regional institutions and Chinese OFDI

Integrating agency and institutional theories, this paper examines the impact of top-executive compensation and regional institutions on the outward FDI(OFDI) of a sample of Chinese-listed firms. The results show that top-executive cash pay and equity ownership have a positive association with OFDI. Differing from previous studies focusing on cross-country institutional variances, we take variations in within-country institutions into account and find that regional institutions in terms of product markets, factor markets and legal systems play an important role in OFDI and positively moderate the governance role of managerial equity ownership

International entrepreneurial spinoffs : An ambidextrous approach to internationalization

Peer reviewe

Determinants of Entrepreneurial Activities in China

The institutional environment – including protection of private properties and contract enforcement – has been rather unfavorable for the emergence and development of China’s private enterprises. This is in sharp contrast to the case of the developed economies where the institutional environment is conductive to the entrepreneurial activities and only the personal attributes of would-be entrepreneurs determine their entrepreneurship decision. We thus propose a theoretical framework for the entrepreneurship decision in China with a focus on the role of institutional environment. Using a life-histories survey data of 2,854 respondents from twenty cities in China, we find strong support for the impacts of the institutional environment and its interactions with other determinants of entrepreneurship decision