Communist Ideological Imprinting and Internationalization: A Study of Chinese Entrepreneurs

Abstract

We explore how entrepreneurs imprint their organizations, proposing that their imprint serves as an information filter that in turn affects their decision-making and shapes their firm’s strategy. Furthermore, we examine how different types of information diffusion and closure lead to decay and persistence of the imprint and that the rate of imprint decay increases with the credibility of the information source. Empirical investigation of a unique longitudinal dataset of Chinese private entrepreneurs’ from 1993-2012 supports our hypotheses, showing that entrepreneurs communist ideological imprint affects the internationalization of their firms and that a variety of information from the government and different types of information closure affect this relationship. These findings corroborate that there is significant incremental value of examining individuals’ ideological imprint in addition to their current ideology in shaping corporate elites’ decision- making processes. Our study contributes to understanding imprints and their evolution, the political ideology of upper echelons, and internationalization of Chinese firms.