TIME:10:00-11:30, March 24, 2011

ROOM: 216 New Building

SPEAKER: ZHOU Nan, Assistant Professor of Strategic Management of the Moscow School

of Management SKOLKOVO

TITLE:Government corporations and globalization: Evidence from China

Abstract:

In examining the role of governments in globalization, this article proposes that government influences both the motivation of firms to go abroad and the resources they have for doing so. Compared with partially privatized enterprises (PPEs) and fully privatized enterprises (FPEs), state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in China are less likely to venture abroad, as a result of their risk-averse nature. They also differ in the resources they rely on to go abroad: SOEs demand external resources from governments, but PPEs use internal, firm-specific ownership advantages. In addition, because external resources are largely controlled by the government in China, a government policy that encourages firms to go abroad changes the availability of external but not internal resources. As a result,SOEs became more willing to invest abroad after the policy implementation, but the decisions of PPEs and FPEs remained unchanged. An empirical investigation of Chinese-listed firms in high-tech industries between 1991 and 2007 supports these arguments.