Inventi Impact: International Trade

Inventi:mit/19628/16

Success Factors in Western and Chinese Born Global Companies

Born Global firms are becoming increasingly more important in terms of internationalization, innovation,\nability to grow and providing employment. Most of the previous research about Born\nGlobals is done in North America, Europe or Australia, all these being developed industrialized\ncountries but not developing countries or emerging markets. However, the emerging markets in\ngeneral, and the Chinese in particular, have become very important for the world economy. Our\naim is to investigate the differences between Western literature and literature from emerging\nmarkets, regarding internationalization process of Born Global firms. We also aim to discuss the\nvarious success factors, which underlie Born Globals� internationalization process, particularly\nfocusing on Born Globals firms in the China. Our methodology in this research has been literature\nreview and interviews with Chinese CEOs of Born Global firms. However, this paper is only based\non the litterateur part of our research. Our analysis shows that most of the Chinese Born Globals\npublications about the internationalization success factors are based on the Western literature\nand use them as the theoretical platform in the design of their own research strategy and research\nquestions design. The consequence of this observation is important as it indicates that Chinese\nresearchers are reproducing research under different contextual and situational conditions that\nmight lead to unclear conclusions or maybe even wrong conclusions. Furthermore, compared to\nmost Western Born Global companies, which treat innovation as core competence, the innovation\nculture becomes one of the biggest weaknesses of Chinese manufacturing Born Globals� internationalization.\nChina has special economic environment. Chinese manufacturing Born Globals not\nonly need to follow the market but also the government policies, since the government greatly influences\nthe industries and the whole economy. To foreign investors who want to exploit Chinese\nmarket, they also should take Chinese economic background and government policies into consideration.\nOne important aspect of Chinese born Globals, neglected in previous research on Born\nGlobals, that has been identified in our research, is the critical success factor of Chinese manufa-cturing Born Globals�the political and economic background and the role of the Chinese Government\nin the transformation process of Chinese business life, and the Guanxi network.