ABSTRACT
Chinese Outward Foreign Direct Investment (COFDI) plays a growing and controversial role in developed world economies such as Europe and the United States. This chapter provides a detailed examination and comparison of COFDI in Germany and the southeastern U.S., seeking a pattern for investment locations, networks, motivations, and type of companies engaging in this practice strongly encouraged by the Chinese government. A variety of data sources including selected interviews are used. We hypothesize that, due to the relative inexperience of Chinese firms with overseas expansion and unlike the Japanese companies earlier engaged in FDI, acquisitions tend to remain in their original location and are used as objects of study rather than reconfiguration. Applying the Uppsala Model provides insight into networks enhancing learning from globalization.
