Multinationals in China : Business Strategy, Technology and Economic Development

Though it's widely understood that inward foreign direct investment has played a major role in mediating China's emergence into the international economic system, how and why MNEs have implemented their involvement as part of their global strategy is less well understood. This book explores the nature of the MNE in this era of globalization.

Multinationals, China and the Global Economy analyses the results of an in-depth survey of subsidiaries in China of leading manufacturing multinational enterprises (MNEs). It investigates the strategic roles played by these subsidiaries and the sources of technologies they access or generate in doing this. It provides an original contribution to the understanding of important issues in international business, the economic development of China and economics. In international business this study extends our knowledge of MNEs'' global strategies through detailed analysis of the precise roles they expect their subsidiaries in China to play. A central theme of this is how these roles relate to the development of the Chinese economy and help its positioning in the global economy. Using the results of their survey, the authors analyse how MNEs are operating within the reorientation of Chinese development from low-cost exporting to an innovation-oriented and knowledge-driven economy. A very distinctive response to the growing Chinese market, and its changing patterns of consumer demand, emerges as a crucial factor at the core of this.