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Focusing on the growing importance of Indian multinational corporations in the past decades, this paper aims to understand how establishment mode decisions in a foreign market can differ depending on a series of factors. Specifically, the authors examine how institutional distance, including cultural distance and political risk, could affect these decisions, and how international acquisition experience could moderate this relationship.

The authors test their hypotheses using data from 114 outward foreign direct investments between 2000 and 2010.

The findings suggest that experience in international acquisitions increases the likelihood of subsequent acquisitions in high-risk and culturally distant countries.

By considering that the country of origin also matters, some differences among emerging-market multinational corporations (MNCs) may arise. Besides, since empirical research focusing on emerging-market MNCs is scarce, more empirical studies are needed to analyze the influence of cultural distance and political risk on some decisions. In the case of India, there are also additional motivations for analyzing those institutional factors. First, since this is a country with significant linkages to Western countries, it is interesting to know if the influence of cultural distance is similar or not. Second, there is a lack of empirical evidence on the relationship between political risk and establishment mode choice in the case of Indian MNCs. To fill this gap, the first aim of this paper is to analyze how cultural distance and political risk affect the establishment mode choice of Indian MNCs. Moreover, recognizing international experience to be an important factor in explaining international expansion, we focus on international experience interactions with sources of uncertainty inherent in the host market.

Drawing on the institutional perspective, the purpose of this paper is to investigate how state ownership moderates the relationships between political risk, inertia and mimetic behavior, and the location choice of Chinese multinational enterprises (MNEs).

The authors argue that state ownership leads Chinese firms to behave toward political risk in an unconventional way, and that government support makes them less dependent on their own and other Chinese firms’ prior host country experience. The authors tested the hypotheses using data on outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) decisions made by 186 Chinese firms in 93 countries.

The authors found that Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs), compared to non-SOEs, are more likely to move into countries with high political risk, and that they are less likely to be inertial and mimetic.

Building on the distinction between macro- and micro-political risk, The authors contribute to the political risk literature by developing several arguments that explains why political risk varies across investing firms in a given host country. Moreover, this is one of the first studies of its kind to investigate the moderating effect of state ownership on the relationship between inertial and mimetic behavior, and the location choice of Chinese MNEs.

Emerging-market multinational enterprises (MNEs) have pushed institutional factors to the cutting-edge of international business research. As for Chinese MNEs, the importance of institutions has been strengthened since the Chinese government launched the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which seeks to promote a comprehensive platform for cooperation among countries. This study aims to investigate the role played by the BRI as an institutional factor moderating the influence of other institution-, industry- and firm-specific factors on establishment mode choice by Chinese MNEs.

Drawing on the strategy tripod, a perspective claiming that a firm's strategies are the result of internal, industrial and institutional conditions, this study develops a number of hypotheses that are tested with data on 1,076 outward foreign direct investments (OFDIs) of Chinese MNEs between 2013 and 2021.

The results show that the BRI moderates the influence of both the firm's prior international acquisition experience and Chinese government's OFDI restrictions on the establishment by means of an acquisition. They also report that this moderating effect does not apply for acquisition experience in the host country nor institutional distance.

This study contributes to reinforce the importance of institutions as the third leg of a strategy tripod when explaining international behavior of Chinese MNEs. It also suggests that the BRI is a diplomatic tool that may act as a substitute for the firm's resources and may mitigate the negative influence of other external factors.

The conventional wisdom suggests that the lack of prior host country-specific experience and a higher institutional distance deter multinational enterprises (MNEs) from entering a foreign country. However, past studies report that Chinese MNEs show an unconventional risk-taking behavior choosing foreign locations, where they have no prior experience or there is an increased institutional distance. Drawing on the institutional theory, the purpose of this paper is to argue that Chinese Government official visits to the host country may act as a risk-reduction device, thus providing an explanation for such an unconventional behavior.

The authors develop two hypotheses regarding how Chinese Government official visits moderate the impact of host country-specific experience and institutional distance on the location choice of Chinese MNEs. The authors test the hypotheses using a sample of investment location decisions by Chinese MNEs in Latin America.

The authors find that government official visits mitigate the lack of firm’s prior host country experience. However, only high-level government visits reduce institutional distance.

The authors contribute to the international business literature by analyzing how home country government diplomatic activities may pave the way of host country institutional environment for foreign MNEs from that home country. In addition, the authors provide an additional explanation for the unconventional risk-taking behavior of Chinese MNEs. Finally, the authors also contribute to a better understanding of the decision-making process of emerging-market MNEs entering other emerging economies.

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), an ambitious plan led by the Chinese government aiming to reach a close integration between countries, is reshaping the global institutional landscape. Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) play a leading role in the BRI and they usually follow an unconventional behavior derived from the institutional influence of their home government. Prior research reports that institutional distance between home and host countries has an impact on multinational enterprises’ (MNEs’) ownership level in their foreign subsidiaries. Therefore, our aim is to investigate how institutional distance, the BRI and state ownership affect Chinese tourism MNEs' ownership level in their cross-border acquisitions.

Drawing on the institutional theory, this study develops several hypotheses that are tested using a sample of Chinese MNEs from accommodation, travel agencies, transport and leisure/entertainment industries.

The results show that the idiosyncratic characteristics of being an emerging-market MNE belonging to a soft-service industry is associated with a positive relationship between institutional distance and a high ownership level in cross-border acquisitions. They also indicate that targeting a country included in the BRI and being an SOE negatively moderates that relationship.

This study extends institutional theory in the case of tourism firms from an emerging economy. It also addresses an under-research topic in the literature, namely, how the BRI is leading Chinese tourism MNEs to redesign their international strategies.

In recent years, emerging-market multinationals (EMMs) are receiving significant attention in the international business literature. They represent a challenge for the conventional wisdom, mainly derived from the behavior of developed-country multinationals (MNEs). The purpose of this paper is to analyze how different cross-national distances, namely cultural, administrative, geographic and economic, may affect establishment mode choice by Indian MNEs.

Data are collected from 328 outward foreign direct investments carried out by Indian MNEs in 73 countries from 1991 to 2014. A binomial logistic regression analysis is used to test the hypotheses.

The results show that cultural and administrative distances negatively affect the choice of an acquisition. Moreover, firm size, acquisition experience, host country experience, industry, belonging to the G20 alliance and being a state-owned enterprise also influence establishment mode choice.

This is one of the first studies that investigate the relationship between distances and establishment mode choice by Indian MNEs. The findings suggest that they follow a different behavioral pattern among EMMs, since their internationalization decisions are closer to those of developed-country MNEs.

Outward foreign direct investment (FDI) from emerging economies, in particular from China and India, is on the rise. As a result, the international expansion of emerging-market multinational enterprises (MNEs) is attracting growing attention among scholars. However, existing research comparing the location patterns of Chinese and Indian MNEs is still scant. In order to fill this gap, we aim to analyze the impact of political risk and cultural distance on the location choice of Chinese and Indian MNEs. Drawing on an institutional approach, we propose several hypotheses regarding the influence of political risk and cultural distance on location decisions. We test our hypotheses using a sample of FDIs carried out by Chinese and Indian MNEs. Our findings suggest that the behavior of Chinese MNEs is less conventional than that of their Indian counterparts when facing institutional obstacles in host countries. Previous papers dealing with location decisions of China’s and India’s outward FDI did not specifically address the impact of political risk and cultural distance. This comparative study provides new empirical evidence on the influence of these traditional host country institutional factors.

Since the beginning of the 21st century, China’s outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) is growing steadily and Chinese multinationals (MNCs) are playing an increasingly important role in the global economy. Thus, the number of papers focusing on China’s OFDI and Chinese MNCs has been increasing during the last years. The aim of this chapter is to carry out a review of the empirical papers dealing with Chinese MNCs published between 2002 and 2012 in high-impact international business and management journals.

This chapter reviews 43 empirical papers focusing on Chinese MNCs that were published in nine major scholarly journals between 2002 and 2012.

We report individual and institutional contributions, the theories and methods used, the research topics, and the main findings. We also discuss implications for future research.

Some previous literature reviews have dealt with research on China’s OFDI and Chinese MNCs. Nevertheless, none of the earlier reviews dealt specifically with empirical papers; neither did they provide an analysis of both individual and institutional contributions.

The number of papers focusing on foreign companies doing business in China has increased significantly since the open‐door policy came into effect in the late 1970s. Performance has been one of the most researched topics. This paper aims to carry out a review of the empirical papers which have analysed the performance drivers of foreign companies in mainland China.

The paper reviews 62 empirical papers dealing with the performance of foreign firms in mainland China, published in ten leading international academic journals between 1978 and 2006.

An analysis of the main findings is offered, along with a summary of the theoretical approaches, methodologies, samples and performance measures used.

The paper identifies the factors which contribute to greater performance in mainland China. Although other studies have reviewed the literature in the Chinese context, none had specifically tackled this topic through a comprehensive review.

In recent years, China and India have been experiencing a process of economic and social transformation that is unprecedented in recent human history. The consequences of the spectacular resurgence of these two Asian giants are profound and far‐reaching, and are causing the centre of gravity of the world economy to be drawn inexorably toward these countries. The aim of this paper is to offer a comparative approach to the reality of China and India as regards business and strategic management.

The paper reviews previous literature that has focused on comparing various issues related to business and management in China and India.

The paper highlights the points of convergence and divergence in the developmental patterns of China and India, the key factors for success in each country, the entry modes that could be used and the business opportunities they offer.

The paper provides a comparison between China and India with regard to business and strategic management, analysing the main similarities and differences between the two Asian giants.