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Previous studies have mostly estimated there to be a symmetric effect in the Foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow regarding the economic growth of Central, East and Southeast European (CESEE) countries. However, for the CESEE countries, as well as for the majority of countries around the world, there has been no study that has estimated the symmetric and asymmetric effect of outward FDI on economic growth. The main objective of this study is to estimate whether the relation between outward FDI and economic growth in CESEE countries is symmetric or asymmetric.

This study includes a sample based on eight CESEE countries. The authors used the linear and non-linear autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model and annual data for the period from 1990 to 2020.

In the long run, in the linear ARDL model, a significant symmetrical effect due to OFDI on the economic growth of Romania and Slovenia was found, while in the non-linear ARDL model, a significant asymmetric effect of OFDI on the economic growth of Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovenia and Slovakia was found. In six out of the eight countries, asymmetry was found while symmetry was found in the other two. Poorer symmetry results can be ascribed to the lack of linear model neglecting the asymmetric behaviour of the positive and negative change decomposition as part of the OFDI movement, which leads to the wrong conclusion.

This is the first study to evaluate the asymmetric effect of outward FDI on the economic growth of eight CESEE countries.

This study attempts to assess the role that institutional quality (IQ) plays in influencing inflows and outflows of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) for BRICS nations as burgeoning FDI is flowing into and out of these countries. Moreover, this paper explores the impact of individual governance indicators separately on the FDI flows.

The study analyses this nexus for these emerging economies for the period 1996–2019 using autoregressive distributed lag technique.

The study indicates a significant and positive coefficient for IQ in India and South Africa, suggesting that improving IQ would enhance the IFDI. However, for outward FDI (OFDI)–IQ linkage, the results show a negatively significant impact of IQ on OFDI for Brazil and Russia. Additionally, the authors observe control of corruption as a significant institutional component for attracting inward FDI for Brazil, India and South Africa, whereas it is an insignificant factor for Russia and China. Further, the authors notably find that upgrading the governance indicators will decrease the level of OFDI for Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa. On the contrary, findings suggest that improving the IQ will foster the OFDI for India.

This study uses time-series analysis instead of cross-country analysis (used extensively in literature), avoiding heterogeneity. Further, this study explores the IFDI–IQ link for BRICS nations, which are captivating a significant chunk of IFDI, and still not given much attention in the extant literature. Moreover, the authors identify the impact of IQ on the OFDI, neglected by the existing studies.

This paper aims to conduct an analysis of the influence of both the breadth and depth of outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) undertaken by Chinese high-tech listed companies during the period spanning 2010–2019. The data pertaining to these companies was used as a research sample to analyze the effects of OFDI on radical innovation performance.

Hierarchical regression analysis was used to test the proposed models, using survey data collected from 442 high-tech companies in China.

The findings of this study indicate a curvilinear (i.e. U-shaped) relationship between the breadth/depth of OFDI and radical innovation performance. Additional analysis reveals that OFDI plays a role in facilitating innovation breakthroughs by enhancing the internal dynamic capabilities of companies. Moreover, it is observed that a well-established institutional environment in the host country of investment can positively moderate the relationship between OFDI breadth/depth and radical innovation performance.

This study proffers a significant contribution to the understanding of the crucial role played by OFDI from emerging economy companies in enhancing radical innovation performance. Moreover, it offers theoretical guidance for multinational companies aiming to foster innovation breakthroughs.

Long regarded as a far-fetched notion, companies from post-socialist economies (PSEs) increasingly compete with companies from advanced economies in their domestic markets and abroad. This study identifies PSE companies' motives and determinants of outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) in advanced economies.

This study analyses Slovenian business activities in Germany by juxtaposing eight Slovenian investors and three exporters using a multiple case study approach. The authors use content analysis to examine rich data from semi-structured interviews, databases and internal and external documents to provide comprehensive and in-depth insights into PSE investments in advanced economies.

The authors identify market-seeking motives and competitive advantages which differ from those of other emerging economy companies and offer theoretical suggestions. In contrast to findings from other emerging economies, the authors identify firm- and country-specific advantages, such as high technology, high service quality, a highly educated labour force, and European Union membership, which Slovene companies have employed to enter the advanced German market.

This study represents the first application of springboard theory to explain PSE company investment in advanced economies. The authors offer contextualised explanations of PSE investments in advanced host economies, which have been lacking thus far. The authors also contribute to the scarcity of studies on the effects of supranational institutions on OFDI from emerging economies.

Drawn from the push–pull perspective, this research aims to identify the determinants of Chinese technology's outward foreign direct investments (OFDI) into the Eurasian region.

The authors argue that contrary to the extant literature, technology-driven OFDI from emerging-market multinationals (EMNEs) do not always seek developed countries, and EMNEs' technology investments in emerging economies are rising indicating that there are factors in these economies that can prove attractive. The authors recognize the influence of the macroeconomic environment and the interaction of home and host-country institutional contexts that influence the location choice of EMNEs technology-driven OFDI into other emerging economies, mediated by the industry sector and firm's ownership structure. The authors test our hypotheses using a sample of 1,656 observations of Chinese MNEs' tech-investments in the Eurasian region from 2005 to 2019.

The study results indicate that bilateral diplomatic relations pave the way of the host-country institutional environment for Chinese MNEs uncovering the role of the Chinese government as an OFDI facilitator. This study also unveils a lower technology level of the Chinese MNEs' investments in the Eurasian region connoting an interest in market opportunities exploitation through their existing technologies – through its comparative advantage in the global markets – rather than strategic assets acquisition aiming at augmenting their technological capabilities. This trend is similar to that of other major foreign direct investment (FDI) source countries.

This research contributes to a better understanding of the characteristics and the location choice of technology investments from EMNEs into other emerging economies that have received scant attention in the literature. In addition, it extends the institutional theory by analyzing how home-country institutions, through bilateral diplomatic relations, may smooth the host country institutional environment for home-country MNEs' foreign investments and contributes as well to the debate on the applicability of the existing theoretical framework in the case of emerging-market MNEs.

This study aims to determine how and through what mechanisms the outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) promotion effect of the Belt and Road initiative (BRI-OFDI) affects domestic investment. It is motivated by the context that China is fostering a new development pattern, as well as by the impetus from the Belt and Road initiative for the new pattern.

Drawing on data of Chinese-listed companies, this study uses a difference-in-difference method to explore the effect of the BRI-OFDI on domestic investment and a mediation model to illustrate the mechanisms.

The BRI-OFDI has a significantly positive effect on domestic investment, meaning that the Belt and Road initiative's OFDI promotion effect crowds in domestic investment. The results are heterogeneous: the crowding-in effect mainly exists in non-state-owned and technology-intensive enterprises, while a crowding-out effect is seen in state-owned and labor-intensive enterprises. The easing of corporate financing constraints and the expansion of market demand are two important mechanisms.

This study uses the Belt and Road initiative as an exogenous shock to investigate the impact of the initiative-induced OFDI promotion effect on domestic investment. It addresses the potential endogeneity issue confronting the studies on the relationship between OFDI and domestic investment in the literature. The authors focus on the possible spillover effects of the Belt and Road initiative discussing the impact of the BRI-OFDI on domestic investment from the micro-firm perspective. It offers a new perspective to objectively assess the initiative's policy effect.

The purpose of this study is to provide a textual approach to quantify the perception of uncertainty from management side and investigate how firms manage their overseas investment dynamics when perceiving an increase in economic policy uncertainty (EPU).

Using a textual analysis approach, the study evaluates firm-level perception of EPU. Based on the data from China's listed firms between 2007 and 2018, it examines the association between firm-level perception of EPU and overseas investment using probit model and fixed effects regression with robust standard error adjusted for heteroscedasticity and clustered by firm.

The study finds that the level of EPU perceived by individual firms is heterogeneous. Moreover, it finds that firm-level perception of EPU is positively associated with firms' overseas investment. When perceiving an increase in EPU, firms are more likely to invest abroad and their overseas investment is more diverse. Further analysis shows that the positive association between firm-level perception of EPU and overseas investment is weaker in firms with higher financing cost, investment irreversibility and management incentive but stronger in firms with more intensive industry competition. However, it does not find significant difference in the impact of firm-level perception of EPU on overseas investment of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and non-state-owned enterprises (non-SOEs). The results are robust to using alternative measures of primary variables and to endogeneity concerns.

First, although the data on outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) at the national and provincial levels are comprehensive, the data on OFDI at the firm level are still relatively scarce. As the firm-level OFDI data become available, future study could be extended to OFDI flow. Second, future study could use other information disclosed by firms to evaluate their perception of EPU from host countries and examine the impact of bilateral EPU on overseas investment. Third, by evaluating firm-level perception of uncertainty in terms of a particular type of economic policies, such as fiscal policy, monetary policy, trade policy and foreign investment policy, future study could probe the sources of EPU affecting firms' overseas investment.

First, although uncertainty increases the volatility of firms' investment activities, firms can recognize and seize investment opportunities in an uncertain economic environment and make profits through resource integration. Second, as the association between firm-level perception of EPU and overseas investment depends on firm and industry characteristics, firms with higher financing cost, investment irreversibility and management incentive should be more cautious when making overseas investment decisions during uncertainty times. Third, governments should increase the transparency and the stability of their economic policies to help firms plan their investment policies.

The study extends the literature related to EPU measurement by constructing a firm-level perception index of EPU based on firms' annual reports using a textual analysis approach. Moreover, it sheds some light on the mechanism of how firms modulate their overseas investment activities under uncertainty.

There is consensus among scholars on how political institutional imprinting interprets the unique management and practice phenomenon of Chinese enterprises. However, little scholarly attention has been given to the different political institutional imprints that shape firms’ internationalization. Therefore, this study aims to investigate how communist and market logic political institutional imprintings influence firms’ initial ownership strategies in outward foreign direct investment.

Based on the propensity score matching difference in difference method and a sample of 464 foreign investments from 2009 to 2020 for 310 Chinese private firms.

The results show that private firms with market logic political institutional imprintings tend to adopt higher ownership and vice versa. As institutional differences increase, private firms with market logic imprintings are more risk-taking and adopt higher ownership, whereas private firms with communist imprintings are more conservative and choose lower ownership. When diplomatic relations are friendlier, private firms with market logic imprintings prefer higher ownership to grasp business opportunities and vice versa.

This study not only identifies the net effect of political institutional imprinting on private firms’ initial ownership strategy but also investigates the different moderating effects of current institutional forces to respond to the call for research on bringing history back into international business research and the fit between imprinting and the environment.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a framework for evaluating the relationship between China and Peru, drawing on dependency theory, against the backdrop of China’s explicit policies towards foreign direct investment. It seeks to transcend traditional interpretations of this relationship in the literature that focuses on China as either hegemon or a South–South partner to Latin American countries to highlight a more nuanced relationship.

The paper adopts a case study approach, focusing on China in Peru. The authors examine three areas of traditional, strategic and emerging industries drawing from Chinese national policies, reviewing these against characteristics of dependency: control of production, heterogeneity of actors, transfer of knowledge and delinking.

The authors find that Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) in Peru demonstrates mixed motives and collectively operates as an ambiguous player. Chinese firms appear to be willing to work with various actors, but this engagement does not translate into a decolonial development alternative in the absence of a Peruvian political will to delink and Chinese willingness to actively transfer control of production and knowledge.

This paper contributes to existing literature on China in Latin America by evaluating Chinese outward FDI in Peru against China’s strategic aims in terms of a re-evaluation of dependency theory.

This study aims to investigate how the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and Chinese outward foreign direct investments (FDI) impact the Belt and Road countries (BRCs). It draws on postcolonial theory to investigate the (geo)political objectives behind the financial and economic means.

In line with the nature of postcolonial studies, the study applies a discourse analysis integrating it with empirical data on indebtedness and trade.

This study finds that FDI and the BRI, as a development project, need to be considered a double-edged sword for the receiving countries. The authors provide evidence that China has instrumentalized financial and economic means to gain political influence and pursue geopolitical ambitions. Moreover, investments into sensitive sectors (e.g. energy, infrastructure), combined with the BRCs’ inability to pay back loans, could eventually lead to China gaining control of these assets.

The study investigates the financial and economic means that are instrumentalized to gain political influence while not considering flows of technology and know-how. It also limits itself to the study of FDI coming from one specific country, i.e. China. Therefore, no comparison and evaluation are made of FDI from other countries, such as the USA or European countries.

By revealing noncommercial objectives and geopolitical ambitions that China pursues through the BRI, the authors derive policy implications for the BRCs, third countries and China.

The study contributes to postcolonial theory and neocolonialism by investigating how China uses financial and economic means to achieve noncommercial objectives and pursue geopolitical ambitions. Additionally, the authors enhance the understanding of FDI by highlighting more subtle aspects of the complex and contextual nature of FDI as a social phenomenon, which have been overlooked thus far. The authors challenge the predominant positive framing of FDI and provide a counterpoint to the way FDI is often coined.