Rationale of internationalization of China's national oil companies: seeking natural resources, strategic assets or sectoral specialization?

The bulk of the existing literature emphasized that China's companies sought strategic assets (technology, brands and access to markets) through internationalization in order to overcome latecomers' comparative disadvantage, while some studies suggested that these firms went after natural...

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Main Authors: Lai, Hongyi, O'Hara, Sarah, Wysoczanska, Karolina
Format: Article
Published: Taylor & Francis 2014
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/28875/
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author Lai, Hongyi
O'Hara, Sarah
Wysoczanska, Karolina
author_facet Lai, Hongyi
O'Hara, Sarah
Wysoczanska, Karolina
author_sort Lai, Hongyi
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description The bulk of the existing literature emphasized that China's companies sought strategic assets (technology, brands and access to markets) through internationalization in order to overcome latecomers' comparative disadvantage, while some studies suggested that these firms went after natural resources to address China's rising oil imports. The third argument (which we coin the ‘sectoral strength’ hypothesis) suggested that the upstream firms in extractive business would seek natural resources, whereas downstream ones would seek strategic assets. In this study, we examine the rationale of main overseas investment deals (‘going out’) of China's two largest national oil companies during 2002–2010 which were also China's top two non-financial firms with the largest outward investment stocks during 2004–2010. We conclude that these deals can be best explained by the ‘sectoral specialisation’ hypothesis supplemented with a consideration for strategic assets.
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spelling nottingham-288752020-05-04T16:52:40Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/28875/ Rationale of internationalization of China's national oil companies: seeking natural resources, strategic assets or sectoral specialization? Lai, Hongyi O'Hara, Sarah Wysoczanska, Karolina The bulk of the existing literature emphasized that China's companies sought strategic assets (technology, brands and access to markets) through internationalization in order to overcome latecomers' comparative disadvantage, while some studies suggested that these firms went after natural resources to address China's rising oil imports. The third argument (which we coin the ‘sectoral strength’ hypothesis) suggested that the upstream firms in extractive business would seek natural resources, whereas downstream ones would seek strategic assets. In this study, we examine the rationale of main overseas investment deals (‘going out’) of China's two largest national oil companies during 2002–2010 which were also China's top two non-financial firms with the largest outward investment stocks during 2004–2010. We conclude that these deals can be best explained by the ‘sectoral specialisation’ hypothesis supplemented with a consideration for strategic assets. Taylor & Francis 2014-08-08 Article PeerReviewed Lai, Hongyi, O'Hara, Sarah and Wysoczanska, Karolina (2014) Rationale of internationalization of China's national oil companies: seeking natural resources, strategic assets or sectoral specialization? Asia Pacific Business Review, 21 (1). pp. 77-95. ISSN 1360-2381 assets-seeking business China energy firms internationalization resources-seeking http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13602381.2014.939896 doi:10.1080/13602381.2014.939896 doi:10.1080/13602381.2014.939896
spellingShingle assets-seeking
business
China
energy firms
internationalization
resources-seeking
Lai, Hongyi
O'Hara, Sarah
Wysoczanska, Karolina
Rationale of internationalization of China's national oil companies: seeking natural resources, strategic assets or sectoral specialization?
title Rationale of internationalization of China's national oil companies: seeking natural resources, strategic assets or sectoral specialization?
title_full Rationale of internationalization of China's national oil companies: seeking natural resources, strategic assets or sectoral specialization?
title_fullStr Rationale of internationalization of China's national oil companies: seeking natural resources, strategic assets or sectoral specialization?
title_full_unstemmed Rationale of internationalization of China's national oil companies: seeking natural resources, strategic assets or sectoral specialization?
title_short Rationale of internationalization of China's national oil companies: seeking natural resources, strategic assets or sectoral specialization?
title_sort rationale of internationalization of china's national oil companies: seeking natural resources, strategic assets or sectoral specialization?
topic assets-seeking
business
China
energy firms
internationalization
resources-seeking
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/28875/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/28875/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/28875/