The Empirical Study on Chinese Firms' OFDI Motives Based on Location Pull Factors

摘要

China's Outward Foreign Direct Investment (OFDI) has experienced dramatic soaring in recent years, which has aroused extensive attention. The paper aimed to modify the motives or strategies framework suitable to emerging countries based on Resource-based View (RBV), thus explore their multiple motives and evolving strategy. According to the framework, the motives are classified into three types, namely resource-intensifying, resource-implementing and resource-developing. The paper then assumed the location choices of firms' OFDI can offer the best fit with their motives, thus by reverse reasoning, the pull factors of the host countries can serve as the justification. Therefore, hypotheses are established based on these pull factors. Regressing on panel data from 53 Chinese OFDI destinations during 1998-2008, we found that Chinese OFDI was mostly resource-intensifying and complementing type of motives, which had experienced the strategy of sequentially diversified progress and varied with different host countries. The results from China can not only help explain the reasons of Chinese firms' FDI, but contribute reference for general motive studies on emerging countries' OFDI.