Chinese ICT Research Articles

Chinese Multinationals and Europe’s Geoeconomic Turn: The De‐Globalization of the Chinese ICT and Automotive Industry?

Amid increasing geopolitical tensions between Western powers and China over the alleged state-capitalist nature of Chinese corporate internationalization, European governments have introduced a set of political measures tightening their trade and investment regimes on grounds of national security and economic competitiveness. This article analyzes how this “geoeconomic turn” in Europe affected the internationalization of (state-backed) Chinese firms into Europe and hence the establishment of Sino-European corporate relations. With a focus on the Chinese ICT and automotive industries, we zoom in on corporate internationalization by distinguishing two modes: (a) outward foreign direct investments (greenfield investments and mergers and acquisitions) and (b) the formation of collaborative ties (strategic alliances and joint ventures) with European companies—a hitherto underexplored form of Sino-European corporate relations. Our analysis is predicated on a comprehensive dataset consolidating information on both modes of internationalization for the period 2000–2023. We show that, in relation to investment numbers, Chinese companies continue to expand into Europe, even if values are decreasing. We also find that the formation of collaborative ties (strategic alliances and joint ventures) has not halted but increased in the wake of Europe’s geoeconomic turn, indicating a further intensification of Sino-European corporate relations, though under the radar of tightening investment policies and mechanisms. When unpacking the variegated impact of the geoeconomic turn on Chinese companies’ internationalization strategies in Europe, our study also finds, however, that its ramifications vary substantively—not only per sector but also among companies exposed to varying degrees of party-state permeation. Applying a novel fine-grained measure to party-state permeation, the article shows that the geoeconomic turn seems to have affected predominantly those leading Chinese firms with a high party-state exposure.

Learning along the Digital Silk Road? Technology transfer, power, and Chinese ICT corporations in North Africa

While much attention has been paid to how China’s rise as a digital superpower could threaten US hegemony over cyberspace, much less has been written on what the Digital Silk Road, or the presence of Chinese tech firms in developing countries more broadly, means for technological upgrading and development. This article contributes to filling this gap by investigating the technology spillovers emanating from two Chinese tech giants – Huawei and ZTE – in Algeria and Egypt. Using a political economy framework that combines insights from structuralist economic development and techno-politics and drawing on over 70 semi-structured interviews and field-observations, it argues that despite localizing activities that bear the promise of generating significant linkages, the two Chinese tech firms created no meaningful learning opportunities for domestic entities that contribute to technological upgrading. What could at first seem like developmental connections that promote technology transfers are found to be linkages diffusing Chinese infrastructures, hardware, software, processes, and standards that shape distinct digital systems. Without pro-active policies from host governments, the Digital Silk Road risks creating new technological dependencies; locking local ICT actors into activities and relationships captured and defined by Chinese tech giants.

African agency in ICT infrastructure provider choice: Navigating access to foreign finance and technology

After nearly three decades of “ICT for development”, the rollout of ICT backbone infrastructure remains challenging throughout Africa. African states do not only depend on the technology of foreign companies but must also seek external finance to pay for it. This dual dependency puts African governments in a vulnerable position, leading us to inquire: to what extent does the dual dependency on foreign finance and technology affect African agency in ICT infrastructure provider choice? The paper proposes a model that distinguishes between the agency of higher and lower income countries. Elaborating on the latter, the model assumes that the source of foreign ICT-related finance (i.e., China, World Bank, both, internal) determines whether the recipient state can exercise a weak, medium, or strong degree of agency in its ICT infrastructure provider choice. The paper further argues that the link between foreign finance and degree of agency is shaped by the digital development agenda of the donor. For instance, the model predicts that countries which predominantly received Chinese ICT finance possess weak agency when choosing an ICT infrastructure provider because China's digital development agenda ties the provision of finance to hiring a Chinese contractor. By examining the ICT-related financial inflows and geographical distribution of network equipment providers in African states, the paper shows that the source of finance affects the degree of agency and, subsequently, the choice of ICT infrastructure provider. However, the analysis also suggests a divide in African agency along former colonial lines. In fact, the model holds only for countries without colonial ties to France whereas former French colonies all contracted Huawei, regardless of ICT finance flows.

Międzysektorowe powiązania produkcyjne Europy Środkowej i Wschodniej z Chinami po wprowadzeniu Cyfrowego Jedwabnego Szlaku

Cross-sectoral production links of Central and Eastern Europe with China after the introduction of the Digital Silk Road China increasingly marks its presence in the global economy through services that enrich traditional manufacturing (servitization of manufacturing). In this article, the Central and Eastern European (CEE) region is analysed in the context of this phenomenon. Because of the ongoing development of the relevant economies, only advanced services were examined, equating these with ICT services. The aim of the article is to assess the share of Chinese ICT services in the industrial production of CEE, in particular in the computer, electronic, and electrical equipment industry after the introduction of the Chinese Digital Silk Road. The study confirms that China is increasingly enriching CEE manufacturing with its services; however, the intensity differs depending on the economy considered.

Digitalization of the Business Environment and Innovation Efficiency of Chinese ICT Firms

This study investigates how the digital business environment affects firms' innovation input variables. It was discovered that digitization leads to ongoing corporate environment optimization, which improves the effectiveness of innovation. One of the institutional environment factors, digitalization, increases the redundancy of government subsidies on businesses' investments in innovation. It also helps to eliminate duplication in innovation investment through the financial environment and the protection of legal rights. With increasing marketization in the informal institutional framework, the degree of R&D investment redundancy lowers while R&D human resource investment redundancy grows. Digitization not only lowers the grade of innovation, but it also has a negative association with the duplicate nature of commercial R&D investments. The authors' research combines institutional environment theory and digital development to establish a new empirical foundation for corporate development in order to boost innovation efficiency.

Hybrid strategy and firm performance: a time-series qualitative comparative analysis of the Chinese ICT sector

PurposeThe paper examines whether the hybrid strategy can generate high performance and what hybrid strategy configurations are more conducive to high performance.Design/methodology/approachThis paper explores the complex causal relationships between six strategic elements (marketing, growth, R&D, capital, efficiency, stability) and firm performance. From a configurational approach, the authors utilize necessary condition analysis, time-series qualitative comparative analysis, and typical case extraction techniques to analyze 944 balanced panel data from 118 Chinese ICT firms during 2013–2020.FindingsChinese ICT sector firms do not rely on pure strategies (prospector or defender) to achieve high performance. The hybrid strategy is conducive to high performance. Only specific hybrid strategy configurations, including stable growth, innovative efficiency, and two-way player types, could enable firms to perform well. Six strategic elements do not constitute a necessary condition for high performance.Originality/valueThis paper proposed an integrated qualitative comparative analysis scheme, proved the effectiveness of the hybrid strategy on firm performance, and revealed how hybrid strategy configurations generate high performance.

Exploring the Relationship between R&D Investment and Business Performance—An Empirical Analysis of Chinese ICT SMEs

Service and product innovation have been emphasized as being essential to the success of ICT firms in numerous studies. Being ongoing processes, R&D activities make it challenging to forecast the benefits to a business. Does the company obtain immediate returns on its research and development expenditures? How long will their effectiveness remain? During the development of a strategy, business managers must take all these factors into account. A major objective of this paper is to determine the relationship between a company’s R&D investment and its business performance. We collected data from 1262 small- and medium-sized enterprises in the ICT service industry in China between 2011 and 2020. The R&D investment was selected as the independent variable, while its financial performance (ROA, ROE, liquidity ratio, debt asset ratio, and interest cover ratio) and market value (Tobins’ Q) were selected as the dependent variables. Multiple linear regressions were used to determine whether there was a correlation between these variables. Firstly, R&D investment improve current profitability and there is a one-period lag in these benefits. Second, R&D is negatively correlated with short-term debt-paying ability, but positively correlated with a long-term view, and these effects will last for one period. Lastly, R&D investment has a negative impact on the current market value, but the R&D investment within the two lagged periods still has a positive impact. This study addresses a significant gap in empirical research. Recommendations for companies to consider when making R&D decisions are also included in the paper.

China Shocks to Korea’s ICT Exports

Purpose - This paper examines China’s impact on Korea’s ICT exports considering the direct competition channel, the production shift channel, and the indirect demand channel at once. This paper also takes China’s economic rebalancing into account and discusses whether it makes any differences in the effect of the three channels. Design/methodology - To quantify the effect of the three channels, I constructed a linear panel regression model and estimated it with various estimation methods including the system GMM. China’s exports toward the same destination as Korea’s exports, Korea’s exports toward China, and the third countries’ exports toward China respectively reflect the three channels. China’s GVC indicators are included as well to evaluate the effect of further China’s economic rebalancing. Since the present paper has a greater interest in the effect of China rather than the determinant of bilateral trade, a (fixed effect) panel model becomes more appropriate than the gravity model because timeinvariant variables in the gravity model, such as the distance and the language, are eliminated during the estimation process. Findings - The estimation results indicate that Chinese ICT exports are complementary to Korea’s ICT exports in general. However, when markets are considered in subgroups, China’s ICT exports could have a negative effect in the long run, especially for SITC75 and SITC76 markets, implying a possible competitive threat of China. The production shift effect turns significant during China’s economic rebalancing in the markets for the advanced economies and the SITC76 product. China’s indirect demand channel is also in effect significantly for the advanced economy and SITC75 commodities during China’s economic rebalancing periods. In addition, this paper shows that China’s transition toward upstream in the global value chain could have a positive impact on Korea’s ICT exports, especially at the Asian market. Originality/value - The contribution of this paper is threefold. First, it focuses on the ICT industry for which Korea increasingly depends on China and China becomes a global hub of the GVC. Second, this paper quantitatively studies three channels in a model in contrast to the literature which mostly examines those channels separately and pays less attention to the GVC aspect. Third, by utilizing relatively recent data from the period of 2001-2017, this paper discusses whether China’s economic rebalancing affects the three channels.

A Research on the Decoupling of US and China and Its Impact on Chinese ICT Company’s Supply Chain - Huawei and Honor Case -

A Research on the Decoupling of US and China and Its Impact on Chinese ICT Company’s Supply Chain - Huawei and Honor Case -

Cross-Sectoral Inter-Country Linkages under the Belt and Road Initiative: Chinese ICT Services Value Added Inflows to Manufacturing Exports in the New Eurasian Land Bridge Economies

The article presents the New Eurasian Land Bridge (NELB) of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and China, with a special focus on the role of these countries in global value chains (GVCs), to investigate the intensification of the Chinese ICT services’ value-added inflows to the NELB countries’ manufacturing, especially to transport equipment and computers, electronic and electrical equipment. The central question is how strong the linkages between the Chinese ICT services and the selected NELB countries’ manufacturing are. We hypothesized that: (1) As a result of the introduction of the BRI, the role of the Chinese ICT services’ value-added diverted to the NELB countries’ manufacturing gross exports increased; (2) The growth rate of the Chinese ICT services’ value-added directed to the NELB manufacturing gross exports exceeds the growth rate of the non-services’ value-added diverted to their manufacturing; (3) The NELB economies became more dependent on the Chinese ICT services’ value-added embodied in their manufacturing gross exports.

In the Face of Spillovers; Chinese ICT Trade With the U.S., Innovation and Economic Growth

In the Face of Spillovers; Chinese ICT Trade With the U.S., Innovation and Economic Growth

Exploration of the initiation and process of business model innovation of successful Chinese ICT enterprises

Purpose This paper aims to investigate four successful Chinese ICT enterprises to determine what initiated their business-model innovations and the process they went through by exploring how they adapted and innovatively renewed four key elements of their business models. Design/methodology/approach This investigative and exploratory research adopted a multiple-case-study design exploring four purposively selected successful Chinese ICT enterprises which had all engaged in significant business model innovation since their inception. Data for the case studies were collected through in-depth interviews with the founders and analyses of the companies’ history to gain a detailed account of the evolution of the firms’ business models since their formation. Findings The research identified three key initiating factors to business model innovation in the firms studied, namely, constant and rapid product iteration, along with an emergent strategy, leading to business model innovations to take full advantage of the firms’ competitive advantages; a reaction to threats and environmental changes; and an opportunistic behaviour to extend the business model to new markets. The research found that networks were a key factor in the process, including the customer base, financial investors and network collaborators. Research limitations/implications This research is limited to four successful Chinese ICT firms; this in-depth approach means the information may have only limited transferability but provides depth on a burgeoning Chinese sector. Originality/value This research addresses the call for more research and a greater understanding of what initiates business model innovation and the process firms go through to develop the key elements of their business models by looking at a purposively selected sample of successful Chinese enterprises in a fast-moving and technologically driven market.

Understanding the roles of ICT enterprises in promoting the ICT industry ecosystem in education: Case studies from China

AbstractThis study aims to explore the roles of Chinese ICT enterprises in promoting the ICT industry ecosystem in education in China, and construct a structural model of a healthy ICT industry ecosystem in education. After examining ICT demands in education, this study adopts a multiple case studies methodology. Fifty‐five employees from five enterprises (iFLYTEK, Tencent, EIST, Sh‐tz and Beijing Tstudy) participated in this research. This study mainly adopted qualitative research methods to collect data, including interviews and documentations (secondary data). Quantitative data from a questionnaire were also collected to complement the qualitative data. To ensure reliability and validity, data from multiple sources were triangulated to address the same research question. The result in‐depth illustrates the products and roles of three cases which are iFLYTEK, Tencent and EIST, and further reveals the roles of ICT enterprises. Based on the results, this study divides ICT enterprises into Small and Medium‐sized enterprises with less roles, and Large‐Scale Enterprises with more roles, and puts forward a structural model of a healthy ICT industry ecosystem in education. This study provides feasible recommendations for governments, consumers and micro and macro directions and paths for the strategic choices of enterprises. This work offers guidance to relevant researches and practices.

“Reading China”

The “informatisation” agenda of the CCP calls upon a wide range of ICTs to transform everything from manufacturing to social management. The umbrella of versatile Internet of Things technology therefore serves as a key component of policy makers’ efforts to further digitalisation. This paper explores claims that Chinese ICT policy appropriates the Internet of Things to improve surveillance and social management in order to increase the governing capacity of the Chinese state apparatus. Finally, the paper discusses the emerging credit systems in the face of a shift towards digitalisation and reliance on data-driven analysis, and the increased attention given to cyber security that results from the Chinese state’ reliance on technology.

A Comparison Study on the Vertical Integration and Horizontal Specialization of Chinese ICT Companies

It is said that the decision of vertical integration or horizontal specialization (the boundary of the firm) affects a firm’s profit and competitive advantage, especially in the ICT industry. This paper focused on top market share Chinese ICT companies in global smartphone industry, Xiaomi and Huawei, to examine how they design their boundary of operation systems in R&D. Patent data analysis is used to investigate Xiaomi’s and Huawei’s technology strategies and technical networks, also to compare their systems with each other. According to the results of analysis, we suppose that Xiaomi has rough R&D organization structures and hence has low level of integration, which close to horizontal specialization. On the other hand, Huawei has high weight on internal R&D, and explores technologies related to core technologies. Its R&D structures are more highly integrated than Xiaomi.

A research on the international competition ability measure of Chinese ICT industry

ICT industry is playing a key role nowadays and in the future world economic development, and has become the focus of world economic competitions. In the process of making current empirical investigation on the international competition ability of the ICT industry, we meet great difficulties. The research on the international competition ability measure of Chinese ICT industry can remedy the shortcomings of the theory research and also benefit for determining Chinese ICT status in the world, in that way we can get the access to make improvements for the international competition ability of the Chinese ICT industry. To further explore and discover the level of international competition ability of the ICT industry in a scientific way, some famous scholars choose the evaluation index on the mixing of the ICT industry's specific characteristics. In this paper, we have selected RCA index, MS index, TC index and CA index as measuring indexes and find out the weight of these indexes and time sequence through advanced entropy method to measure international competition ability of the Chinese ICT industry. The results show that the international competition ability of Chinese ICT industry is in the second place among 15 countries, with a higher level of international competition ability.

A research on the international competition ability measure of Chinese ICT industry

ICT industry is playing a key role nowadays and in the future world economic development, and has become the focus of world economic competitions. In the process of making current empirical investigation on the international competition ability of the ICT industry, we meet great difficulties. The research on the international competition ability measure of Chinese ICT industry can remedy the shortcomings of the theory research and also benefit for determining Chinese ICT status in the world, in that way we can get the access to make improvements for the international competition ability of the Chinese ICT industry. To further explore and discover the level of international competition ability of the ICT industry in a scientific way, some famous scholars choose the evaluation index on the mixing of the ICT industry's specific characteristics. In this paper, we have selected RCA index, MS index, TC index and CA index as measuring indexes and find out the weight of these indexes and time sequence through advanced entropy method to measure international competition ability of the Chinese ICT industry. The results show that the international competition ability of Chinese ICT industry is in the second place among 15 countries, with a higher level of international competition ability.

A Study on the Development Stages of Employee Stock Ownership Plan in a Chinese ICT Company:

A Study on the Development Stages of Employee Stock Ownership Plan in a Chinese ICT Company:

Stasis, dynamism and emergence of the e-mobility system in China: A power relational perspective

Efforts at urban e-mobility transition in China are of crucial global significance. Exploring these developments, however, demands significant reframing of dominant theories of socio-technical system transition to accommodate the strikingly different socio-political context of China to that of the global North where these theories have been developed. In particular, greater attention must be paid to issues of power, conceptualized as dynamic power/knowledge relations constitutive of social formations and evolving in interactive parallel with specific innovation trajectories. We illustrate such a productive reframing focusing on complex processes of empowerment and highlight that there remains relative stasis in the grand plan of a rapid transition to electric cars (EVs) in China's growing cities, with the EV still widely regarded as “risky” mobility. At the same time the EV in China is becoming a constituent of a new kind of digitized and smart mobility, as Chinese ICT companies emerge as globally powerful players establishing alliances with traditional automobile companies.

중국 ICT 기업의 성장추세와 경로에 관한 연구

중국 ICT 기업의 성장추세와 경로에 관한 연구