企业国际化扩张的驱动力:国有股权和市场竞争的双重角色

The drivers of chinese firms' international market expansion:The dual roles of state ownership and market competition

本研究从企业外部环境的资源依赖关系入手,分析了国有股权以及行业内竞争强度如何影响企业的境外市场扩张战略,同时还分析了企业的技术能力如何调节这些影响。基于我国241家开展境外扩张的制造型上市公司5年的面板数据,研究发现企业的国有股权对境外市场扩张存在倒U型的作用,而企业所面临的行业内竞争对境外市场扩张存在正U型的作用。此外,企业的技术资源加强了国有股权与境外市场扩张间的倒U型关系,但并未显著影响行业内竞争与境外市场扩张间的正U型关系。本研究的结论对我国企业国际化战略提供了新的理论视角和观点。

International market expansion is a strategic move through which firms expand their business spanning across national borders. Although theliterature largely focuses on international market expansion of firms from developed economies, a growing number of recent literatures have focused on firmsfrom emerging economies （EE, hereafter） engaging in international market expansion at an accelerated pace. Thus, it is worthy to examine drivers behind EEfinns＇ international market expansion. Existing studies conducted in developed economies tend to view firm-specific advantages as a basic driver of firms＇international expansion. However, lacking sufficient firm-specific advantages is still a primary characteristic of EE finns. Hence, we need to go beyond thefirm-specific advantage view when investigating drivers of EE firms＇ international market expansion. Because EE firms often lack adequate resource endowment, they have to depend on some critical external actors for resources, such as domesticgovernment agencies and markets. The dependence relation between firms and environmental actors enables firms to acquire resources. The relation alsoencourages intervention from these actors on firms＇ decisions. According to the resource dependence theory （RDT）, a primary strategy of these firms is escaping,by which the firms can decrease their dependence on some specific external actors. From the perspective, international market expansion of EE finns can beviewed as an escaping strategy by which the firms loosen constraints they face in their home countries. In EE, firms often depend on both local governments and markets for resources. State ownership creates an affiliation relation between government andfirms. It reflects the interdependence relationship between govemrnent and firm, and determines the extent of finn＇ accesses to government resources and thedegree of government intervention. Competitive intensity in an industry refers to the interdependence relationship between competitors and firm, anddetermines the extent of firm＇ accesses to market resources and the degree of competitive constraints. Because the possibility of a firm to adopt escapingstrategy is decided by the tradeoff between resource acquisition and the risk of intervention or constraints, both state ownership and market competition wouldaffect EE firms＇ international expansion. In addition, firms＇ resources endowments may change the interdependence relationship between external actors andfirms. Thus, this study also explores how technological resources--often identified as a critical type of resources for firms--moderate the effect of stateownership and market competitive intensity on EE firms＇ international expansion. Leveraging a five-year （2007-2011） panel data of 241 Chinese listed finns in the manufacturing sector, we employed a feasible generalized least squaresapproach （FGLS） to test our hypotheses. Our results indicate that finns＇ levels of state ownership have an inverse U-shaped effect on EE finns＇ internationalmarket expansion. Explicitly, with the increase of state ownership, finns＇ international expansion will increase after reaching up to a certain point. The finns＇international expansion will decrease even if the levels of state ownership further increases. In contrast, market competition has a U-shaped impact oninternational market expansion. Explicitly, as market competition becomes more intensive EE firms＇ international market expansion will decrease. Afterreaching up to a certain point, the firms＇ international market expansion will increase with the increase of competitive intensity. Our results also indicate thattechnological resources positively moderates the inverse U-shaped relationship between state ownership and EE firms＇ international market expansion, incontrast, technological resources have insignificant moderating effect on the U-shaped relationship between competition intensity and intemational marketexpansion. Our findings provide some insightful theoretical views and empirical evidence for EE firms＇ international market expansion.