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

Lai, Hongyi; O'Hara, Sarah; Wysoczanska, Karolina

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


Authors

HONGYI LAI HONGYI.LAI@NOTTINGHAM.AC.UK
Associate Professor

SARAH O'HARA SARAH.O'HARA@NOTTINGHAM.AC.UK
Ceo University of Nottingham Online

Karolina Wysoczanska



Abstract

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.

Citation

Lai, H., O'Hara, S., & Wysoczanska, K. (2015). Rationale of internationalization of China's national oil companies: seeking natural resources, strategic assets or sectoral specialization?. Asia Pacific Business Review, 21(1), 77-95. https://doi.org/10.1080/13602381.2014.939896

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Mar 21, 2014
Online Publication Date Aug 8, 2014
Publication Date 2015-01
Deposit Date May 22, 2015
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Journal Asia Pacific Business Review
Print ISSN 1360-2381
Electronic ISSN 1743-792X
Publisher Routledge
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 21
Issue 1
Pages 77-95
DOI https://doi.org/10.1080/13602381.2014.939896
Keywords assets-seeking, business, China, energy firms, internationalization, resources-seeking
Public URL https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/734399
Publisher URL https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13602381.2014.939896
Additional Information This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Asia Pacific Business Review on 8 August 2014, available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13602381.2014.939896

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