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 language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 89-116 |
| Number of pages | 28 |
| Journal | Asian Business and Management |
| Volume | 13 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Apr 2014 |
| Externally published | Yes |
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