Global value chain embeddedness and Chinese firms’ cross-border mergers &acquisitions

HaiYue Liu, ShiYi Liu, Jim Huangnan Shen and Chien-Chiang Lee ()

Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, 2024, vol. 68, issue C, 393-411

Abstract: The global value chain (GVC) position of a host country is an important benchmark for firms from home countries to determine their degree of embeddedness within the chain and implement corresponding internationalization strategies. Although there have been a certain number of existing studies related to GVC from various aspects, the links between a host country's GVC embeddedness and firm-level cross-border activities stemming from home countries are surprisingly unexplored in the current literature. This study fills this gap and applies the feasible generalized least squares model to examine how the cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As) strategies adopted by Chinese listed firms from 2005 to 2015 are affected by host countries’ GVC embeddedness, with particular reference to their forward and backward embeddedness as well as the degree of participation along GVC. It is found that Chinese firms are more likely to conduct large-scale cross-border M&As when a host country has higher backward GVC embeddedness and a relatively lower position within GVC. This conclusion remains robust after considering alternative indices, sample range adjustments, and issues of self-selection bias. Further empirical discussions show that the Belt and Road Initiative results in more balanced M&A structures. Additionally, it is empirically demonstrated that host countries’ capital intensities, total factor productivity, and labor productivity moderate Chinese firm M&A location preferences along GVC. This paper has far-reaching policy implications for the internationalization strategies adopted by Chinese firms and offers important insights into how firms could effectively utilize cross-border M&As to conduct optimal international investments around the globe.

Keywords: Cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As); Global value chain (GVC); Belt and road initiative; Location choice (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F13 F21 G32 G34 O23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0954349X23001534
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:streco:v:68:y:2024:i:c:p:393-411

DOI: 10.1016/j.strueco.2023.11.004

Access Statistics for this article

Structural Change and Economic Dynamics is currently edited by F. Duchin, H. Hagemann, M. Landesmann, R. Scazzieri, A. Steenge and B. Verspagen

More articles in Structural Change and Economic Dynamics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().