基于关系视角的中国对外直接投资研究进展与展望

基于关系视角梳理了国内外对外直接投资的研究进展,认为已有的传统理论在解释中国企业对外投资方面虽仍起作用,但难以解释中国跨国企业缺乏所有权优势、快速的国际化步伐和依赖社会关系网络等显著特征,因此必须用中国特有的变量加以补充解释;一方面,文章重点综述了基于合同和契约建立的正式关系网络,强调政治关系和经济关系对中国企业对外直接投资的影响;另一方面,深入探讨基于情感和血缘建立的非正式关系网络对企业跨国投资的影响,认为华人华侨网络是影响中国对外直接投资具有中国特色的关键变量,能帮助企业有效地了解当地制度与文化,实现地方嵌入。最后,提出针对中国特点的中国企业对外直接投资的研究方向：1）建构基于中国特色的企业对外直接投资理论框架;2）基于关系视角的中国企业对外直接投资需要进一步探讨;3）基于族裔网络关系视角的对外直接投资研究有待探索。

Review of Chinese Foreign Direct Investment from a Relationship Perspective

Through implementing the “Going Global” strategy and the Belt and Road Initiative, Chinese enterprises are accelerating their integration into economic globalization. Although China’s foreign direct investment (FDI) has been widely researched at home and abroad, domestic economic geography studies on the FDI of Chinese multinational enterprises are still relatively few or have just begun. To digest this situation, the present article reviews the literature of FDI from a relationship perspective. We argue that while the traditional theory explains Chinese FDI to some extent, it cannot easily explain some unique characteristics of Chinese firms, such as weak ownership advantages, rapid internationalization, and dependence on social networks. Therefore, it must be supplemented with Chinese-specific variables. First, the review focuses on the formal relation networks based on contracts, emphasizing how political and economic relations have influenced Chinese enterprises’ FDIs. On the one hand, China’s political system environment differs from that of western countries, and Chinese enterprises’ FDI is largely influenced by the government. This influence is reflected not only in state-owned enterprises, but also in the location selections of private enterprises. Both types of enterprises must consider the political relations between China and the host country of the enterprise. On the other hand, wider economic cooperation often extends the relation network. As Chinese enterprises usually lack investment experience in overseas markets, they tend to invest in countries or regions with business interactivity (psychological proximity). Close economic relations are usually one of the most important affecters of Chinese enterprises’ FDI. Second, we highlight that Chinese FDI largely and uniquely depends on informal relation networks based on emotion and kinship. Although many studies have focused on the role of overseas Chinese networks in inward FDI in China, the role of such networks in outward FDI by Chinese enterprises, with China becoming a FDI exporter, has not been fully revealed. Moreover, overseas Chinese networks play different roles in different network relations, which also warrant further exploration. Finally, the review proposes research directions for Chinese enterprises’ outward FDI with Chinese characteristics: (1) Constructing a theoretical framework of FDI based on Chinese characteristics; (2) further exploring the FDI of Chinese enterprises from a relationship perspective, in terms of both formal and informal relation networks; and (3) FDI research from the perspective of ethnic relation networks, which remains unexplored.