The internationalization of Chinese industries: Overseas acquisition activity in Chinese mining and manufacturing industries

Chaohong Zhou, Arjen Van Witteloostuijn, Jianhong Zhang*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

This study examines how industrial characteristics at home affect Chinese overseas acquisition activities from an industry-level resource-based view. Analyzing data on 512 Chinese overseas acquisition deals across 36 industries in 60 countries over 2003-2008, we find that: (1) firms in industries with higher levels of technology intensity are more likely to acquire foreign firms, while firms in labor-intensive industries are more likely to stay at home; and (2) the relationship between technology gap and international acquisition activity is hill-shaped. This implies that overseas acquisition is particularly attractive for developing Asian firms in industries with high technology intensity, and a medium-sized technology gap is essential for identifying potential targets.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)89-116
Number of pages28
JournalAsian Business and Management
Volume13
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Apr 2014
Externally publishedYes

Funding

We gratefully acknowledge the University of Antwerp (Belgium) for financial support. We also thank the general editor Michael A. Witt and the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments, and Ad van den Oord for providing patent data.

Keywords

  • acquisitions
  • China
  • internationalization
  • resource-based view

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