The main purpose of this research is to understand the determinants of global integration strategies of Chinese Multinational Enterprises (MNEs). In this article, we identify four expansion ...strategies for Chinese MNEs, that is, horizontal, vertical, lateral and risk diversification and we investigate a series of location and firm-level factors that determine the adoption of each strategy. We present empirical evidence based on data from the 2008 Spring edition of the Lexis Nexis Corporate Affiliates Directory. Our results indicate that Chinese MNEs expand internationally through a grid of strategic choices which is diversified geographically and industrially.
By estimating stochastic frontiers we investigate the determinants and dynamics of firm efficiency. We use a representative sample of Estonian firms for the period 1993-1999 – and are able to address ...problems that plague much previous work, such as the endogeneity of ownership. Our main findings are that: (i) foreign ownership increases technical efficiency; (ii) firm size and higher labor quality enhance efficiency, while soft budget constraints adversely affect efficiency; (iv) Estonian firms operate under constants returns to scale; (v) the percentage of firms operating at high levels of efficiency increases over time. As such our findings provide support for hypotheses that a firm’s ownership structure and its characteristics such as firm size, labor quality, soft budget constraints and time of privatization are important for its technical efficiency.
In this paper we investigate the importance of sunk costs, firm characteristics and spillovers from nearby exporters on a firm’s decision to participate in exporting. The empirical analysis involves ...the estimation of a non-structural, discrete choice, dynamic model with firm heterogeneity. By using panel data for Estonian companies from 1994 to 1999 we find that: (i) both sunk costs and observable firm characteristics are important determinants of export market participation; (ii) previous history matters, in that, if a firm has been exporting the previous period or the period before, it significantly increases the likelihood of the firm exporting in the current period; (iii) larger firms with high capital intensity and foreign ownership are more likely to be exporters; (iv) operating in an export-oriented industry increases a firm’s likelihood of exporting.