Going International: the Experience of Chinese Companies

Vol. 2, No. 2

International Business Research

Going International: The Experience of Chinese Companies

Qiang Ding Waikato Management School, The University of Waikato Private Bag 3105, Hamilton, New Zealand E-mail:qd8@waikato.ac.nz Michèle E.M. Akoorie Waikato Management School, The University of Waikato Private Bag 3105, Hamilton, New Zealand E-mail: mema@waikato.ac.nz Kathryn Pavlovich Waikato Management School, The University of Waikato Private Bag 3105, Hamilton, New Zealand E-mail: KPAV@waikato.ac.nz Abstract To date, China’s offshore factories and outward FDI have received little attention in the literature, even if China has been the country with the largest outward FDI of all of the developing nations. The objective of this paper is to provide a contribution to the understanding of Chinese enterprise activity abroad, drawing on the published documents and case analysis. The paper highlights that Chinese firms need to take a learning approach to their internationalization process going international not only means to gain access to new markets abroad, or make better use of the internal production capacity, it still can be an opportunity to learn from the international business environment and make the organization look beyond its daily routines. Keywords: Internationalization, Outward FDI, China 1. Introduction By February 2006, China had replaced Japan as the largest nation holding foreign exchange reserves, reaching USD 853.7 billion (Macartney & Duncan, 2006). These data, however, just show one side of China’s “open door” policy. Since the early stages of the “open door” policy, China’s central government has not just focused on encouraging inflow of FDI or exporting “Made-in-China” goods all over the world. It has supported its state-owned enterprises to invest in other countries for diversified motivations (Child & Rodrigues, 2005). China is now increasingly integrated into the global economy. According to UNCTAD (2004) data, China has emerged as one...