The purpose of this paper is to examine how multinationality strategy, home political influence, and hostcountry
risk explain the performance consequences of OFDI patterns of
firms in the most important
emerging economy, China. Two main patterns of OFDI (‘born global’ natured multiple simultaneous and
IP-natured gradually growing) have been dominant in China during its
first OFDI as a latecomer. In
contrast to the conventional IP argument, we hypothesize that the multiple simultaneous pattern of a
born-global nature leads to better performance. We also hypothesize that
firm multinationality strategy
and home political influence play greater roles in enhancing the performance effect of the multiple
simultaneous pattern than another pattern, i.e., IP-natured gradually growing pattern. Using panel data
of 4619 observations from 261Chinese publicly listed
firms from 1991 to 2011, we
find a superior
performance effect for the multiple simultaneous pattern. Further, we
find a greater moderating effect of
firm multinationality strategy and home political influence affecting the OFDI and performance
relationship undertaken by the multiple simultaneous pattern than by the gradually growing pattern.
Our study extends understanding of OFDI patterns in emerging economies and suggests that the analysis
of performance consequences should focus on external and
firm factors that may facilitate the
performance effect.