'Chinese Investment in Technology-Intensive and Natural Resource-Rich Global Regions and Countries' Leadership, Organisations and Behaviour Research Seminar

Dr Irina Heim is a Lecturer in Apprenticeship Programmes and the Army Higher Education Pathway at Henley Business School. She is also Deputy Director of the Centre for Euro-Asian Studies and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (UK). The topic of this presentation is 'Chinese Investment in Technology-Intensive and Natural Resource-Rich Global Regions and Countries' and the presentation is based on a research paper co-authored by Dr Heim, Professor Yelena Kalyuzhnova and Maria Richert.

The paper explores China's outward foreign direct investment (COFDI), which has rapidly increased in recent years. This increase is predominantly driven by a search for resources and as China's economy transforms into a post-industrial one, with a focus on knowledge and technology, there has been a shift towards searching for both natural and technological resources. This has led to the development of new theoretical views on these processes and there is now a need to systematise them in a structured way.

This study offers a detailed review of 89 articles on the role of COFDI in resource-rich and technology-intensive global regions and countries that attract Chinese investors. Based on the geographical scope and thorough coverage of studies published between 1998 and 2023, the presentation will summarise the major themes, theories and methodologies used in this research area.

Identifying three elements related to Chinese investments (antecedents and motives, strategies and outcomes), a matrix has been developed to build on the discussion of Chinese firms' investment behaviour in the external environment they operate. The presentation will go onto describe the theoretical difference between the investments in natural resource-rich global regions, such as Africa and Central Asia, and technology-intensive regions, such as Europe and North America, to acquire, create, co-create and transfer technology. This has identified that several research sub-themes (i.e. control mechanisms, learning, technology transfer and intellectual property) remain under-investigated and present opportunities for future research development.

The seminar will be held on 7 March 2024, 1:00pm, in room 208 of the Henley Business School building, Whiteknights campus. For those unable to attend in person there is also the option to dial in remotely via Microsoft Teams. If you are interested in joining, please contact Alex Baker on a.j.baker@henley.ac.uk

LOB research seminars are co-ordinated by Dr Matteo Borghi and Professor Marcello Mariani.