Correlation between Industry Selection and Location Choice of Multinational Enterprises

摘要

Industry selection and location choice are both main topics of MNE’s entry strategy, but there is little study on whether they are correlative or not. This study takes China’s InwardFDI and OutwardFDI as example, studying the industry distribution difference between foreign direct investment in China and Chinese firms’ going abroad. Then it puts location in, to study when Chinese firms go abroad to advanced countries and to developing countries, whether the industry selection is the same. Meanwhile, it studies that when MNEs from advanced countries or developing countries come to China, whether the industry selection the same. After analysing investment industry, home country and host country of IFDI top 200 firms and OFDI top 40 firms (118 investment projects) of China, the paper obtains empirical conclusions by using statistics: There are discrepancies in both industry selection and location choice between IFDI and OFDI, and there are significant differences about technological intensity of IFDI industries from advanced countries and developing countries, so MNEs’ industry selections are correlative with location choices. However, there is no difference between OFDI industries for Chinese firms to advanced countries and to developing countries, on account of strong resource-seeking motivations in China’s OFDI.