Suchergebnisse

Recent years have witnessed substantial outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) from many emerging economies. Should the governments of these economies encourage OFDI in order to promote domestic innovation? Much OFDI by emerging economy multinational enterprises (EMNEs) has been undertaken to acquire strategic assets overseas, but do these acquisitions bring innovation benefits at home? The empirical analysis presented in this paper considers the effects of OFDI on regional innovation performance, using a panel of Chinese provinces, and finds that OFDI has a very significant impact on domestic innovation. Furthermore, we also identify three contingent factors – absorptive capacity, foreign presence, and the competition intensity of the local market – that moderate the impact of OFDI on innovation performance.

Finnish-based forest corporation, Stora Enso, is developing and purchasing eucalypt plantations, and establishing a large pulp mill with an approximate production capacity of 1 million tonnes of pulp per year in southern China. The project has been evaluated by recognised international assessment, which concluded that it would be profitable and environmentally and socially sustainable. Wood supply from existing and new plantations was assessed to be sufficient to meet the need of the pulp mill. The conclusions on wood supply were based on very simple estimates and risky assumptions on mean annual increment (MAI) and areas of plantation estate available without fully taking into account many high-risk factors, or at least data are not available in the public domain. This paper discusses several elements that have an effect on sustainability of wood supply, including factors and risks affecting wood production and land availability. The results demonstrate a close relationship between wood production of the plantation itself, and the total area needed to produce a certain amount of wood. At the scale of the case study involved, every 10% change in MAI is equivalent to about 5000 to 40 000 ha of land, depending on growth rates. We show that many new fast-growing eucalypt plantations, in addition to existing ones, are needed for long-term sustainability of wood supply. Moreover, substantial investments in strategic and applied research would be required to achieve high and sustainable production per unit area in the given environment. This means that more actions will be required in the establishment and management of new plantations. The results from the wood supply scenario also reveal the growing importance of corporate responsibility (CR) in the corporate governance agenda of the forest sector. In order to achieve the desired economic, environmental, and social outcomes, national macro-economic planning, a consistent policy and management framework, and a systematic, focused and institutionalised approach to CR are therefore expected from the government and the private sector, respectively

Political ties and managerial cognitive biases, specifically overconfidence, have been identified as affecting firm-level R&D processes and outcomes. Here we further conceptually and empirically explore how these two factors may influence R&D intensity in an emerging market context. Our empirical results, based on panel data from 1293 Chinese publicly listed firms (between 2010 and 2014) show, contrary to some previous research, that stronger formal political ties somewhat reduce firm-level R&D intensity. Greater overconfidence in managers, by contrast, increases R&D intensity. Interestingly, moreover, overconfidence positively moderates the relationship between political ties and R&D intensity to the extent that the weak negative relationship becomes positive in the presence of overconfidence. Our results highlight the role of managerial mindset as an important determinant of R&D intensity in the emerging market context.