The impact of formal and informal institutional distances on the strategic asset seeking motives of Chinese multinational enterprises: An analysis of patent and trademark acquisitions

This study was to examine the influence of specific contributory variables within formal versus informal institutional distances on the sub-motives of emerging-market multinational enterprises’ (EMNEs) strategic-asset seeking (SAS), in order to gain insights into the behaviours and motivations of increasing outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) from emerging economies like China. From a multinomial logistic regression analysis of both firm and macro-level data, it was found that private business groups (PBGs) were more likely to target and acquire firms with patents and trademarks. The findings also suggest that the informal cultural distance was significantly associated solely with the EMNEs’ motive for seeking companies with trademarks but no patents. The association between formal institutional distance with EMNEs’ SAS behaviours was not significant. The findings also revealed that certain sub-dimensions of formal and informal cross-national distance had significant effects on overseas specific SAS behaviours. These findings inform further exploration of determinants of EMNEs’ SAS behaviours and provide a more comprehensive understanding of EMNEs’ internationalization trends. This research contributes to the current literature on EMNEs and provides practical and managerial implications for EMNE decision-makers while investing abroad.