Navigating the Web of Informal Institutions When Investing in a Strange Land: Chinese Multinational Enterprises in Australia

Mingqiong Mike Zhang (), Ying Lu, Jiuhua Cherrie Zhu and Hui Zhou
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Mingqiong Mike Zhang: Monash University
Ying Lu: Macquarie University
Jiuhua Cherrie Zhu: Monash University
Hui Zhou: Hunan University

American Business Review, 2020, vol. 23, issue 2, 316-334

Abstract: Multinational enterprises (MNEs) need to understand and handle various informal institutions in host countries to survive and succeed. How MNEs effectively manage informal institutional characteristics of host countries is an important question for both practitioners and scholars. This paper addresses this important but neglected topic based on an in-depth longitudinal qualitative study. It identifies some key informal institutions in Australia, examines how such institutional distinctiveness shapes the behaviour of Chinese expatriates and MNEs and how they handle such informal institutional differences between China and Australia. Our findings challenge some taken-for-granted assumptions regarding informal institutions in the literature and demonstrate that informal institutions of host countries significantly shape the behaviour of expatriates and firm-level strategies of MNEs.

Keywords: Australia; China; Informal Institution; Longitudinal Qualitative Study; Multinational Enterprise (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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