网络视角下的国有和民营制造企业对欧盟投资的区位选择

在推进“一带一路”建设和推动形成全面开放格局的进程中,越来越多企业走出国门,在全球构建起愈发紧密的联系网络。国有企业和民营企业的海外投资区位选择和差异成为国内外经济地理研究的前沿领域。有别于传统的对区位资源论的分析,本文尝试将映射在区域尺度的国有企业和民营企业网络资源运用于中资企业对欧盟投资区位选择的研究中,并进一步区分国有企业和民营企业网络资源的异质性影响,以期丰富中资企业对欧盟投资的区位研究。研究结果显示现有国有企业网络资源不仅影响后续国有企业的投资选址,也影响后续民营企业的投资选址,但现有民营企业网络资源仅影响后续民营企业的投资选址。从时间维度看,2008—2012年国有企业网络资源和民营企业网络资源分别对后续国有企业和民营企业投资选址产生影响,2013年以后,国有企业网络资源深刻影响后续民营企业的投资选址。这一结果表明在“一带一路”倡议实施过程中,国有企业对推动民营企业“走出去”发挥重要作用。

Network resources and location choices of China's state-owned and private manufacturing enterprises in EU

Thanks to the implementation of Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), an increasingly number of Chinese multinational enterprises (MNEs) have carried out foreign direct investment (FDI), not only in developing countries, but also in developed countries. European Union (EU), which was severely hit during the world financial crisis, has been one of the most important destinations for Chinese MNEs. Chinese MNEs have built up increasingly close networks of connections in the EU. However, the classic theories, such as the Eclectic Paradigm of International Production, mainly treat location as a container, and therefore ignore the importance of dynamic network resources. The role of network resources as location factors has been one of the heated topics in economic geography studies. Based on the data from the BVD -- ORBIS global enterprise database from 2000 to 2019, this paper applies social network analysis methods to build networks of Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and private enterprises (PEs) in the EU separately, and then explores the influence of the prior networks on the sequent location choice. The findings are as follows: (1) In terms of geographical distribution, both SOEs and PEs are spatially agglomerated in the Blue Banana Area, a sporadic urbanization corridor that begins from Northwest England, stretches to greater London, Southern Germany, German Rhineland, Alsace-France, Switzerland, and ends in Northern Italy. (2) Regarding to investment network structure, both SOEs and PEs prefer the same regions, such as North Holland (NL32), Lombardy (ITC4), Upper Bavaria (DE21), to undertake transit functions. (3) In addition, the combined analysis of network characteristics and agglomeration characteristics can reveal differences in the types of areas of investment by SOEs and PEs. (4) Prior SOE network resources affect the location choice of subsequent SOEs and PEs, while prior PE network resources only affect the location choice of subsequent PEs. (5) In terms of temporal dimension, the network resources of SOEs and PEs influence the subsequent investment of SOEs and PEs from 2008 to 2012 separately, while the network resources of SOEs profoundly influence the location choice of PEs after 2013. Our results prove the vital role of SOEs in promoting the internationalization of PEs. This paper suggests that the government establish investment exchange platforms between SOEs and PEs to promote the information exchange and sharing between them, so as to help them enter the overseas market.