Project Details
Projekt
Chinese multinational corporations in Germany: institutional proximity, local cooperation, and knowledge sharing
Subject Area
Human Geography
Term
from 2015 to 2020
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 271648712
The increase in investments of multinational enterprises from emerging markets in developed economies (emerging multinationals or E-MNEs) has been identified as a major trend in global development by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in 2006. The literature indicates that E-MNEs differ markedly from MNEs from developed countries with regard to investment motives, internationalization strategies, and location decisions. There is evidence that E-MNEs invest in developed countries with the aim to get access to strategic resources such as technology, markets, and supplier networks. E-MNEs have become a relevant topic for economic geographers because of their dynamic development, differences in terms of resource endowment and new location strategies. It is the aim of the proposed research project to examine E-MNEs from China, the most relevant country of origin for Germany, with regard to the role of institutional distance, public perception, and the organization of cooperation and knowledge transfer. By choosing China as a source of investments to Germany, the project is linked to the conceptual literature, e.g. on institutional and cognitive distance, and a comparative study design is applied. Up to now, systematic information on the scope of Chinese investments in Germany does not exist. Therefore, Chinese subsidiaries in Germany will be identified in the first part of the project by database analysis and expert interviews. The main empirical part of the project consists of qualitative interviews with Chinese subsidiaries (multiple informant method), cooperating firms (suppliers, customers, competitors), and industry experts.
DFG Programme
Research Grants
