Lobbying in an Autocracy: Intellectual Property and Medical Equipment Firms in China

Abstract

As a direct consequence of the globalization the willingness of foreign investments massively increased. Businesses see opportunities to gain sustainable competitive advantages by expanding and outsourcing sub-divisions into other countries (Pei, 2005). But this also implies that businesses not only need to meet and deal with the existing market conditions, but also often need to deal with a different political environment. Policies, legislation and legal forces differ from country to country, and become one of the key concerns for international acting firms. This is especially true for intellectual property protection. Since decades, and as globalization of industry continues, intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) emerged as the key issue of global innovation policy (Archibugi and Filippetti, 2010). With the international development of economies and growing trade opportunities, the protection of IPR is getting more and more important (Wang, 2004). To establish a worldwide IPR standard have become one of the core businesses of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The WTO supports country authorities to design effective and appropriate IPR regimes (Maskus, 2000). As IPR can be used as policy tool to ensure adequate return on investment, firms are eager to take a stand in this process (Greenhalgh and Rogers, 2007), but this will not be as easy as originally thought, at least not in an totalitarian state like China. Doing business in a totalitarian state significantly differs from running business in a democracy. Business law seems to be rather vague in totalitarian states, and businesses tend to be rather excluded from policy shaping and decision-making processes (Weil, 2016). In order to succeed and survive, firms need to build allies and find business partner (Kazmi et al., 2013).