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This paper aims to examine the impact of six possible foreign direct investment (FDI) spillover channels on the total factor productivity (TFP) of Chinese agricultural enterprises and investigate the moderating role of absorptive capacity (technological acumen) on TFP spillover effects.

Based on data from 118 agricultural and related Chinese industries, the authors employ a multithreshold regression model to empirically analyze the impact of FDI on the TFP of agricultural enterprises and the threshold effect of absorptive capacity. To overcome potential endogeneity problems, the authors select the FDI stock of corresponding USA industries and the industrial access policy index as instrumental variables and re-estimate the model.

The results suggest foreign-invested agricultural enterprises are more likely to benefit from FDI, while the “aggregate” FDI spillover effect is negative for domestic agricultural enterprises. However, once threshold effects are introduced, the authors find firms “close to” (“far from”) the technological frontier experience statistically significant positive (negative) spillover effects. Similar results are obtained for virtually all FDI spillover channels for firms in both upstream and downstream industries. FDI spillovers, when they occur, can be a two-edged sword – benefiting some firms at the expense of others.

The authors introduce six FDI spillover channels to examine the impact of FDI on the productivity of foreign-invested and domestic agricultural enterprises. Moreover, the authors analyze the threshold effect of firms' absorptive capacity. These findings can help formulate foreign investment introduction policies based on the characteristics of agricultural enterprises with different ownership structures. These results are also beneficial for agricultural enterprises to better exploit FDI spillover effects and improve their productivity.

This paper aims to enhance empirical research on foreign divestment and international relocation by multinational firms are still limited and understudied, although these issues have been a frequent phenomenon and carry important economic implications.

The paper investigates the trends of foreign divestment in South Korea and examines firm- and host country-level determinants in total, manufacture and service sectors from 2010 to 2019.

Using probit model analysis, the main findings are first, among the firm-level factors, sales revenue and parent firm dummy are shown as negative and significant determinants of foreign divestment especially in manufacturing sector. Second, among the country-level factors, gross domestic product growth rate and regulatory quality that measures perceptions of sound policies that promote private sector development are shown negative and significant determinants of foreign divestment. On the other hand, relationship between the environmental policy stringency and foreign divestment is shown positive and significant.

The results suggest that these nonfirm-specific characteristics are also important factors in firm decision to divest from the host country.

This study aims to examine two innovation zones in China, including the Suzhou Industrial Park and Tianjin Eco-city, to gain a comprehensive understanding of city locations attributes and its relationship to inward foreign direct investment (FDI) from multinational enterprises (MNEs) in innovation zones embedded in nonhub cities in China.

This research incorporates two site visits and in-depth interviews with 39 personnel working with innovation zones. Thematic analysis is used to analyze interview data and documents.

The results highlight that cities can use innovation zones as a strategy to build high scale knowledge community precincts to connect MNEs and other global actors. As an important institutional feature of city locations, innovation zones increase within-city connectivity and connect cities in global networks resulting in cross-city connectivity to attract FDI from MNEs. From a dynamic knowledge community perspective, this research also compares active and passive approaches toward building knowledge communities and identifies several elements of knowledge communities within innovation zones in China.

The research results could be further explored in other institutional and economic contexts, to understand the interplay of city locations, FDI and innovation zones, and the dynamics of building knowledge communities.

This research has several implications for policymakers and administrators who work with municipal economic development and the development and enhancement of innovation zones. It offers recommendations for MNEs to consider where to make foreign investments and the advantages innovation zones may offer to support FDI.

This research contributes to the literature related to economic development and how nonhub cities can attract FDI and join global networks. It offers empirical insights drawn from two successful innovation zones located in nonhub cities in China.

This analysis examines the relationship between corruption and firm productivity in Vietnam.

The authors apply the system generalized method of moments estimation approach on a panel dataset constructed from comprehensive enterprise surveys covering all the sectors over the 2011–2020 period.

The results confirm a non-linear relationship between corruption and firm productivity. Where corruption is severe, leaving corruption alone tends to benefit firm productivity because efforts to control corruption are likely to cause greater delays. In less corrupt provinces, corruption appears to harm firm productivity while efforts to control corruption provide significant productivity gains. This U-shaped relationship is confirmed for small firms and those in the private sector sub-samples. Intriguingly, this study reveals that the U-shaped relationship does not apply to micro, medium, large firms, state-owned firms and foreign-invested firms because corruption is found to have no significant impact on productivity among these sub-samples. Changes in regulations after 2014 toward promoting a transparent business environment are shown to foster the positive impact of lowering corruption on firm productivity.

This study suggests that lowering corruption is beneficial for firm productivity at the micro level. However, where corruption is severe, monitoring corruption alone is likely to cause adverse effects on productivity due to increased bureaucratic delays. Institutional reforms might play an important role in leveraging the effects of lowering corruption on productivity in highly corrupt areas.

This paper sheds new light on the relationship between corruption and firm productivity in the broad existing literature and especially in the limited number of studies for Vietnam.

Given the surge in foreign direct investment (FDI) in emerging economies (EEs) during the past four decades, inward FDI (IFDI) has spawned a rich, scholarly conversation on the topic. This paper aims to review the literature regarding EE IFDI determinants and the impact of IFDI on those economies. It also aims to provide some future research directions.

A systematic review with thematic analysis of 372 articles on the topic, published between 1991 and 2021, is undertaken. In addition to using the relevant keywords, the snowballing approach was used to manually track the literature.

This review highlights EE IFDI determinants such as institutional quality, corruption and intellectual property rights, regional trade agreements and distances, formal and informal institutions and their interactions, national and subnational diversity and policy expectations. Further, IFDI impacts EEs both at macro- and micro-levels. This review also indicates a substantial increase in research during the period 2000 to 2010 and a decline thereafter; it also indicates Africa and Latin America being under-researched, with a focus on Africa recently increasing.

Rich research opportunities exist in examining the mechanisms (mediators) and conditions (moderators) that influence relationships between the antecedents of IFDI and their outcomes. Further opportunities exist in examining the role of the context and in undertaking a multilevel analysis.

This review provides an understanding of what influences multinational enterprises’ FDI to EEs and how it impacts those economies. It also raises potential future research questions. It provides a holistic understanding of the chosen scope and domain.

Nested within institutional theory and the political economy perspective, this study aims to examine Chinese outward foreign direct investments (OFDI)-supporting organizations and fostering mechanisms for its SMEs in Europe’s largest economy, Germany.

The authors conduct a multiple-case study to present rich insights from elite interviews with representatives of Chinese and German governmental organizations, intermediary parties and specialized OFDI consultants. In addition, the authors analyze secondary data such as presentations, websites, brochures, social media and recent Chinese OFDI policies for SMEs. The findings are triangulated by interviewing business owners and senior executives of seven Chinese SMEs that have invested in Germany.

Cooperating with Germany’s federal government, China’s ministries implemented an effective OFDI support network in Germany, which connects and benefits both economies. This includes Chinese governmental organizations, privately-held national champions, German–Chinese business associations and linked intermediary parties. These organizations support SMEs through four main mechanisms: networking and information, mutually beneficial knowledge transfer between innovation partners, lobbying for potential cooperation and an objective picture of Chinese OFDI and facilitating investment services.

This study advances OFDI theory and contributes to the growing discussion on the internationalization of Chinese SMEs by shedding light on China’s OFDI support organizations and mechanisms in the German market. The study also offers practical contributions. Understanding better how governments can spur internationalization is vital, as it determines the effectiveness of policymaking and fosters international mutual understanding, cultural exchange and firm growth and innovation (Ahlstrom, 2010), and hence ultimately contributes positively to society. Moreover, knowing the specific OFDI support organizations and measures China is currently adopting can serve as a helpful orientation for Chinese entrepreneurs who plan to invest in Germany.

Firms are driven to ride on the digital wave in today’s open innovation ecosystem. This study aims to explore the effect of digital transformation (DT) on knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) firms’ innovation ambidexterity, namely, radical versus incremental innovation, respectively. Meanwhile, the authors evaluated the moderating role of the complexity of R&D collaboration portfolio (i.e. organizational diversity and geographic diversity) in the above relationships.

Using a panel data set of 171 Chinese listed firms in the information and communications technology services industry from 2010 to 2018, the proposed hypotheses were empirically attested.

It is found that DT has a positive relationship with radical innovation and an inverted U-shaped relationship with incremental innovation. In terms of the R&D collaboration portfolio, organizational diversity positively moderates the relationships between DT and innovation ambidexterity, respectively. The geographic diversity weakens the inverted U-shaped effect of DT on incremental innovation; however, its moderating role in the link between DT and radical innovation is not empirically verified.

Extant scholars mainly addressed the interplay between KIBS firms and their manufacturing clients, while this study reveals the different consequences of DT on KIBS firms’ innovation ambidexterity to highlight the role of KIBS firms is an independent and essential innovator in a knowledge-driven economy. Notably, the findings contribute to knowledge management (KM) and R&D literature by confirming the diversity of the R&D collaboration portfolio is a critical KM strategy for KIBS firms to develop and promote external knowledge resources.

This paper aims to examine spillover effects of heterogenous foreign direct investment (FDI) enterprises (domestic vs. export-oriented) through horizontal and vertical linkages and absorptive capacity effect on domestic firms' total factor productivity (TFP). It clarifies the spillover effect on domestic firms in accordance with industrial zones, business size, technology sector and geographical agglomeration, respectively.

The dataset used is based on Vietnamese manufacturing firms during 2011–2014, input–output (I–O) Table 2012. This paper is conducted in two steps: (1) TFP is estimated by using a semi-parametric approach developed by Levinsohn and Petrin (2003); (2) Regression with panel data for domestic firms, applying the fixed effect method.

In terms of domestic-oriented FDI (DFDI) enterprise group: TFP spillover through horizontal linkages is found negative for domestic firms but positive for those participating in export. Additionally, backward linkages have a negative impact on TFP for most domestic enterprises, except for those operating in the high-tech sector. In terms of export-oriented FDI (EFDI) enterprise group, horizontal linkages have a negative impact on domestic firms' TFP including domestic ones participating in export whereas backward linkage is an important channel with positive effects. Absorptive capacity enables firms to improve productivity through linkages with EFDI and DFDI enterprises. Exporters located in industrial zones or regions with numerous exporters can receive better impacts through backward linkages EFDI.

Comprehensively, this is the first paper to detect FDI heterogeneity in their behavior when entering a developing country like Vietnam. The added value in this study comes from the export ability of local firms which is in line with Melitz (2003) theory that they can excel in absorping the TFP spillover from competing with DFDI competitors or from supplying to EFDI enterprises. Moreover, the role of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), low technology, high technology and learning by regions affecting the impact through both horizontal and vertical linkages are included for analysis.

This study aims to propose a refined dynamic network slacks-based measure (DNSBM) to evaluate the efficiency of China's regional green innovation system which consists of basic research, applied research and commercialization stages and explore the influencing factors of the stage efficiency.

A two-step procedure is employed. The first step proposes an improved DNSBM model with flexible settings of stages' input or output efficiency and uses second order cone programming (SOCP) to solve the non-linear problem. In the second step, least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) and Tobit models are used to explore the influencing factors of the stage efficiency. Global Dynamic Malmquist Productivity Index (GDMPI) and Dagum Gini coefficient decomposition method are introduced for further discussion of the productivity change and regional differences.

On average, Chinese provincial green innovation efficiency should be improved by 24.11% to become efficient. The commercialization stage outperforms the stages of basic research and applied research. Comparisons between the proposed model and input-oriented, output-oriented and non-oriented DNSBM models show that the proposed model is more advanced because it allows some stages to have output-oriented model characteristics while the other stages have input-oriented model characteristics. The examination of the influencing factors reveals that the three stages of the green innovation system have quite diverse influencing factors. Further discussion reveals that Chinese green innovation productivity has increased by 39.85%, which is driven mainly by technology progress, and the increasing tendency of regional differences between northern and southern China should be paid attention to.

This study proposes an improved dynamic three-stage slacks-based measure (SBM) model that allows calculating output efficiency in some stages and input efficiency in the other stages with the application of SOCP approach. In order to capture productivity change, this study develops a GDMPI based on the DNSBM model. In practice, the efficiency of regional green innovation in China and the factors that influence each stage are examined.

This study aims to analyse the efficiency effects of institutional distance on Chinese outward foreign direct investment (FDI) in Africa.

The study utilised the true fixed-effect stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) model. Data from 2003 to 2016 (14 years) were acquired from 42 targeted African countries, which are included in the analysis.

The results reveal that FDI flow efficiency can be maximised with a high institutional distance between China and African countries. Contrariwise, comparable institutional distance, measured by the rule of law, regulatory quality and government effectiveness between the host and home countries, reflected a significant positive impact for Chinese outward foreign direct investment (OFDIs), indicating Chinese MNEs can invest directly in a country with comparable institutional characteristics.

There have been limited exceptional studies that assessed the effect of institutional distance between emerging countries. However, none of these studies investigated the effect of institutional distance between China and Africa at a national level. Using the advantage of the SFA model, this study assesses the efficiency effects of institutional distance between the host and home country.