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This chapter focuses on the Chinese cross-border merger and acquisition (M&A) amid the rising trend of multinational companies from emerging economies. Based on a systematic review of published papers in top international business/strategy/organization journals on Chinese overseas M&A, we offer a tentative multilevel framework to consolidate the past achievement, consider contemporary debates, so as to direct future research efforts. We suggest that Chinese overseas M&A research should emphasize on a process perspective ranging from pre-acquisition to post-acquisition. In addition, qualitative research and methodological pluralism should be embraced to achieve this goal due to the nature of this emerging field of Chinese cross-border M&A. By allocating the extant literature into the multilevel framework, we articulate the demand and identify several potential topics for scholarly inquiry in the future in order to gain a nuanced understanding of this important phenomenon of Chinese cross-border M&A for both China and the rest of the world.

Korean organizations’ attempts to transplant home management practices directly to their overseas operations have not been received positively by foreign staff; the application of hierarchical Confucianist management principles has led to high reliance on expatriates in Korean overseas operations and failed integration with both local staff and local markets in host country. In this conceptual chapter, we examine the significance of strong informal social ties (based on the unique social psychology of jeong, woori and nunchi) as cultural control in the Korean workplace and develop this as a novel explanation for Korean management discomfort in overseas settings. Promotion of weak social ties with local staff is suggested as more appropriate for achieving goals of exploring local expertise and knowledge.

Transformational leader behaviors are defined as those behaviors that make followers more aware of the importance and values of task outcomes, activate their higher-order needs and induce them to transcend self-interests for the sake of the organization (Bass, 1985; Yukl, 1989a, b). These behaviors primarily include six types: articulating a vision, intellectual stimulation, demonstrating high performance expectations, providing an appropriate model, fostering collaboration and providing individualized support. Transactional leader behaviors, on the other hand, are founded on an exchange process in which the leader provides rewards/ punishments in return for the subordinate's effort and performance (Burns, 1978). They often include four types: contingent/non-contingent reward and contingent /non-contingent punishment. We examined the effects of these leader behaviors on subordinates' job satisfaction, organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) in Chinese organizations. Data from 410 subordinate-supervisor dyads (287 in Taiwan and 123 in the PRC) suggest that while transformational leader behaviors in both samples have a more profound impact than transactional behaviors on employee job satisfaction and organizational commitment, the effects of each specific transformational and transactional behavior are different in the PRC and Taiwan. In particular, among the six types of transformational behaviors, ‘providing an appropriate model” and “demonstrating high expectation of performance” significantly influenced PRC employees' job attitudes and OCB, whereas “providing individualized support” and “fostering collaboration” had significant influence on Taiwan employees' job attitudes and OCB. Furthermore, among the four types of transactional behaviors, contingent reward and punishment had significant positive impact on PRC employees' job satisfaction and organizational commitment, whereas the job attitudes of the Taiwan employees were not significantly affected by contingent punishment. Instead, it was found that non-contingent reward had significant positive impact while non-contingent punishment had significant negative effect on their job attitudes. In addition, both contingent and non-contingent punishment had significant negative effects on Taiwan employees' OCB, whereas only non-contingent punishment had such negative effects in the PRC. The implications of these findings are discussed in terms of the contingent nature of leadership effectiveness.

This study investigates the way in which acquisition-related human factors affect knowledge transfer in the context of Chinese cross-border M&A for strategic assets. The authors find that the process of knowledge transfer is reciprocal for revenue and cost synergies, including explicit and tacit knowledge. The establishment of joint ventures (JV) in China after the takeover boosts product-oriented knowledge transfer from overseas-acquired firms in mature markets to Chinese acquirers. The promotion of overseas synergies stimulates complementary knowledge transfer flow, which is reversely transferred from Chinese acquirers to overseas-acquired subsidiaries such as low-saving sourcing and new market applications. This study identifies three acquisition-related human factors that impact overseas knowledge senders for knowledge transfer. These human factors are implemented by Chinese strategic investors as new shareholders during the loosen integration phase. The first facilitator is all-round communication programs with top management involvement, aiming to build up constructive communication channels to boost knowledge transfer. The second facilitator is competence-based trust, which stimulates cooperation and application based on similar professional competence between Chinese acquirers and their overseas-acquired subsidiaries. The impeder is a high turnover of key skilled workers at Chinese acquirers to undermine the effectiveness of knowledge transfer.

This study explores the influence of cultural heritage tourism perception on China's tourism image. It analyzes the role of the spiritual bond established between overseas Chinese youth and the motherland during their visit to the cultural heritage sites in China. This study constructs a theoretical model with 350 overseas Chinese youth as samples based on the identity theory, Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) theory, and Howard-Sheth model. The results show that cultural heritage tourism perception directly and positively promotes cultural identity among overseas Chinese youth. It is also indirectly and positively associated with their cultural identity through enhancing the tourism image. Cultural intelligence plays a positive moderating role between cultural heritage tourism perception and cultural identity. The results provide significant implications for developing cultural heritage tourism and cultural communication.

To understand the rationale for foreign direct investment of Chinese electronic companies, their location decisions and entry mode choices

Secondary data on foreign direct investment of the top 100 companies in China’s electronics industry are analysed. The first part covers an exploratory analysis of the industry and the second part presents a comparative longitudinal analysis of three case studies of representative companies: Haier, Huawei, and Lenovo.

The three key findings are: (1) market-seeking is the primary motivation for foreign direct investment of Chinese companies in the electronics industry, yet the strategic-asset-seeking gains importance as the internationalization of the company advances; (2) foreign investment path normally starts at adjacent foreign markets, but more distant markets are gradually targeted and become more important for the company; (3) wholly owned investments are the preferred market entry modes in the international expansion.

This research is based on secondary data, and more in-depth, interview-based studies are needed to explore the perceptions of decision-makers, and a plethora of contextual factors, which result in specific market entry decisions. As only the 100 largest companies were studied, future research should put under scrutiny also internationalization of smaller firms.

Implications of such findings are discussed in the light of classic internationalization theories as well as the current research on internationalization of companies from emerging/developing countries.

Provides an account of foreign direct investment in a context of a substantial and growing importance for the practice of international business, and identifies an agenda for promising future scholarly inquiries.