An analysis of state‐owned and private‐owned enterprises' export performance: The value chain perspective

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate factors that account for variations in the export performance between private‐owned enterprises (POEs) and state‐owned enterprises from the perspective of value chain.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors conducted empirical analysis with the panel data of 19 industrial sectors in China between 2005 and 2007.

Findings

This study finds that labor input, state ownership and vertical specialization have positive effects on export performance while capital and technology inputs have negative effects. In particular, the study found that the superior export performance of state‐owned enterprises to private‐owned ones can be mainly explained by their positions of vertical specialization in the upper stage along the industrial value chain.

Practical implications

The paper shows that, given the significance of POEs in China's economy and foreign trade, restrictions on POEs to enter certain high‐end industrial sectors should be relaxed and policy makers should undertake favourable policies to help POEs to engage in high‐end activities along the industrial value chain.

Originality/value

Although export performance has always been a heated topic in both economics and business studies, the value chain perspective has been rarely investigated and this paper fills the research gap.

Citation

Yi, J., Zhong, Y. and Zheng, Q. (2012), "An analysis of state‐owned and private‐owned enterprises' export performance: The value chain perspective", Journal of Chinese Entrepreneurship, Vol. 4 No. 1, pp. 20-34. https://doi.org/10.1108/17561391211200911