ظاهر بین المللی از شرکت های خصوصی در چین: اثر مزایا و معایب رقابتی نسبت به رقبای بازار

This study uses the resource-based view of a firm to examine the outward internationalization of private firms in China. We investigate the extent to which advantages/disadvantages of resource endowment and organizing capability of Chinese private enterprises (relative to both state-owned enterprises and foreign-invested enterprises at home) may drive outward internationalization and affect their risk-taking tendency when going international. Our analyses of 553 Chinese private enterprises show that a Chinese private firm's likelihood of venturing abroad is associated with resource endowment advantages vis-à-vis foreign-invested enterprises, organizing capability advantages vis-à-vis state-owned enterprises, and organizing capability disadvantages vis-à-vis foreign-invested enterprises. These same advantages (or disadvantages) in organizing capabilities also increase a firm's likelihood of choosing a high-risk entry mode. We also find that a firm's resource endowment and organizing capabilities interact with each other and mutually enhance each other's effect on the likelihood of outward internationalization.

The internationalization strategy of firms is a core issue of business research. Internationalization can be defined as “the process of the firm's becoming integrated in international economic activities” (Mathews, 2006, p. 16). Such activities can occur in a firm's own country in the form of non-equity contracting relationships with foreign firms, joint ventures, or importing; or, these activities can occur outside the firm's country in the form of exporting, licensing, or foreign direct investment (Liu, Xiao, & Huang, 2008). In this paper, we focus on the latter type, which is often referred to as outward internationalization. Past research and theory on outward internationalization posits two general views. The mainstream perspective argues that firms go international to exploit their firm-specific ownership advantages in new geographic locations (Dunning, 1980). An emerging perspective argues that firms go international to overcome competitive disadvantages originating from their own internal resources (Bartlett and Ghoshal, 1988, Child and Rodrigues, 2005, Luo, 2000, Mathews, 2002 and Mathews, 2006) and/or unfavorable domestic institutional environments (Cuervo-Cazurra and Genc, 2008, Luo and Tung, 2007, Witt and Lewin, 2007 and Yamakawa et al., 2008). These two perspectives emphasize the role of internal resources and capabilities of a firm, which constitute its competitive advantages or disadvantages, in driving the firm's internationalization decisions. Scholars have tested these two perspectives extensively in both developed and developing countries. Most of these studies however, focus on one or a few aspects of resources or capabilities (e.g., Yiu, Lau, & Bruton, 2007). There have been few studies examining more comprehensively both the resources and the capabilities of a firm and how they independently and jointly affect the firm's internationalization strategy. The emerging perspective also suggests that unfavorable institutional environment is one of the drivers for firms to internationalize. This implicitly suggests that in transitional economies, where the institutions are not fully established, the emerging perspective applies. There also has been evidence that the mainstream perspective should apply in the transitional economy (Erdener & Shapiro, 2005). We have limited understanding on how the dynamics of institutional environment in transitional economies may affect the applicability of these perspectives (Yiu et al., 2007). This study fills in these literature gaps by testing the applicability of these two perspectives in the context of Chinese privately owned enterprises (POEs). Specifically, we examine how the advantages and disadvantages of resources and capabilities of Chinese POEs, compared with their home rivals, affect the likelihood of outward internationalization and the risk-taking tendency of their internationalization strategy. We define privately owned enterprises as enterprises in which individuals are the largest shareholders (Tsui, Bian, & Cheng, 2006).3 We suggest that the unique competitive and institutional environment in which Chinese POEs operate provides an excellent setting to test the applicability of these two perspectives. While private firms are the dominant force in developed economies, firms with different ownership types such as state-owned enterprises (SOEs) (i.e., enterprises in which the state has the controlling stake), foreign-invested enterprises (FIEs) (i.e., enterprises in which foreign firms have the controlling stake and are managed by the foreign firms), and POEs coexist in transitional economies, such as Brazil and China (Child and Pleister, 2003 and Liu et al., 2008). Each organizational form holds significant market share and they compete with each other in most industries. Therefore, private firms in transitional economies operate in a very different competitive environment from those in developed economies. The strategic behavior of Chinese POEs is more likely to be influenced by market forces than that of SOEs (Liu et al., 2008). These POEs’ structures resemble those of private firms in developed countries. However, the institutional environment and the developmental stage of Chinese POEs are very different from those of private firms in developed countries. To respond to the different institutional and competitive environments, the private firms in China may have to either develop specific advantages or take different strategic actions when going international (Dunning, 2001, Peng et al., 2005 and Yiu et al., 2007). This context provides unique opportunities to extend the mainstream internationalization theories to transitional economies (Liu et al., 2008). Although the emerging perspective was largely developed in the context of transitional countries (e.g., BRIC), a large portion of these studies have focused on large SOEs (e.g., Cui and Jiang, 2010, Deng, 2004, Deng, 2009 and Hong and Sun, 2006). In the context of China, despite the increasing importance of Chinese POEs’ outward internationalization, relatively little research has been conducted in this area. Prior to 2003, Chinese private firms were legally prohibited from investing abroad (Hong and Sun, 2006, Luo and Tung, 2007 and Wright et al., 2005). Additionally, empirical studies have either used aggregated secondary statistical data (e.g., Buckley, Clegg, Cross, Liu, Voss, & Zheng, 2007) or relied on case-based evidence to describe the pattern, trend, and characteristics of Chinese firms going aboard (e.g., Cui and Jiang, 2010, Liu et al., 2008 and Yang et al., 2009). As a result, there is limited (albeit growing) evidence on how Chinese private firms go international based on first-hand firm-level data (for exceptions, see Cardoza and Fornes, in press, Cui and Jiang, 2009, Liu et al., 2008, Yiu et al., 2007 and Zhou, 2007). We believe the unique institutional and competitive environment of Chinese POEs allow us to not only enrich the internationalization theory, but also provide timely empirical evidence with large-scale firm-level data on the internationalization strategy of Chinese POEs. We propose a “comparative” view of competitive advantages and disadvantages relative to home rivals in studying private firms’ international expansion in transitional economies. We argue that in responding to their complex competitive environment, Chinese private firms assess their resources and capabilities relative to their home rivals, with different ownership structures, such as SOEs and FIEs. While some competitive advantages or disadvantages result from different institutional environments faced by firms with different ownership structures, other advantages and disadvantages may result from the internal resources and capabilities of a firm. Consistent with Luo & Rui's (2009) ambidextrous view, we suggest that firms need to both exploit their advantages in resources and capabilities and enhance their resources and capabilities to overcome competitive disadvantages. We further provide empirical evidence on the conditions under which relative advantages/disadvantages in resources and capabilities of private firms, as compared with their home rivals, may affect the likelihood that firms will go aboard as well as affect the risk-taking tendency in internationalization.

In this study, we examined how comparative competitive advantages/disadvantages in resource endowment and organizing capability of Chinese private enterprises (relative to SOEs and FIEs) are related to their internationalization strategy. Our study has integrated the OLI framework with the dual strategic intents hypotheses (Luo et al., in press), ambidextrous perspective (Luo & Rui, 2009) and dynamic capability perspective in internationalization (Luo, 2000) by theoretically explicating conditions under which Chinese private firms may exploit their advantages (as mainstream perspective suggests) versus overcome disadvantages (as the emerging perspective suggests). We found that resource endowment advantages of POEs compared with FIEs and the organizing capability advantages of POEs over SOEs are positively related to a firm's likelihood of outward internationalization. This supports the mainstream perspective and is consistent with the previous research (e.g., Yiu et al., 2007). We also found that POE's disadvantages in organizing capabilities compared with FIEs increase its likelihood of outward internationalization, supporting the emerging perspective. Contrary to our prediction based on the emerging perspective, we find that POEs with resource endowment disadvantages compared with SOEs are no more likely to go international than those without resource endowment disadvantages. We conducted additional descriptive analysis and found that, in general, our perception that private firms tend to suffer from resource endowment disadvantages compared with SOEs is not accurate. In our sample, 43.4% of private firms actually have advantages over SOEs in resource endowment. This may result from the fact that private firms spend more time cultivating relationships with the government and suppliers (Li and Zhang, 2007 and Li et al., 2006). As a result, their access to critical resources may not suffer compared with SOEs. Therefore, whether a mainstream perspective applies or the emerging perspective applies depends on with whom the POEs are comparing their advantages in resource endowment and organizing capabilities. Chinese POEs tend to go international to exploit their advantages in organizing capabilities compared with SOEs, but upgrade their organizing capabilities compared with FIEs. POEs’ comparative positions against both SOEs and FIEs in their domestic market explain these dual intents. POEs are right in the middle of competition with FIEs and SOEs: Their organizing capabilities are typically better than those of SOEs, but inferior to those of FIEs. To compete successfully in the domestic market, Chinese POEs simultaneously exploit the capability advantages compared with SOEs and overcome their capabilities disadvantages compared with FIEs via outward internationalization (Luo & Rui, 2009). In addition, our results also extend the literature by proposing the interactive effect of resource endowment and organizing capability in outward internationalization decisions. Rather than viewing resource endowment and organizing capabilities as two independent facets, our findings suggest that resource endowment and organizing capabilities reinforce each other to facilitate the exploitation and/or acquisition of capabilities through internationalization. The findings of our study also indicate that POEs with advantages in organizing capabilities, compared with SOEs, are more likely to take higher risks. In addition, if the private firms have disadvantages with FIEs in organizing capabilities, they are more likely to take higher risks. This is consistent with the previous research claiming that firms in emerging economies are more likely to take an aggressive approach for internationalization so that they can overcome latecomer disadvantages (Cui and Jiang, 2009, Luo and Tung, 2007, Mathews, 2006 and Yang et al., 2009). However, we find that resource endowment alone is not sufficient to prompt firms to take a high-risk approach for internationalization. It is possible that resource endowment mainly provides enabling conditions for firms to implement their international strategy of exploiting advantages or upgrade disadvantages in organizing capabilities.