Chinese State-owned Companies Research Articles

Climate targets by major steel companies: An assessment of collective ambition and planned emission reduction measures

This article systematically assesses the status, robustness, and potential impact of greenhouse gas emission reduction targets set by the largest steel producer companies as of mid-2022. The assessment covers the 60 largest steel companies by volume, accounting for more than 60 % of global steel production. Data on company-level greenhouse gas emission reduction targets and emission reduction measures were collected from publicly available documents.We found that only 30 companies have their own greenhouse gas emission reduction targets of varying timeframes between 2025 and 2060. Even when excluding the 15 Chinese state-owned companies that are under the national 2060 net zero target, 15 companies had no emission reduction targets. Twenty-one companies had long-term targets (2040 or after), of which 18 were net zero emission targets; all but one also had interim targets. If all climate targets identified among the 60 companies are achieved, annual CO2 emissions for the 60 companies could be reduced by up to 12 % by 2030 and up to 39 % by 2050 in comparison to a baseline scenario. Assuming a gradual increase in global crude steel demand from 1.9 Gt in 2019 to 2.5 Gt in 2050 and assuming similar trends for the rest of the global iron and steel sector as observed for the 60 companies, we estimate that the current ambition of the global iron and steel sector on emission reductions would lead to a reduction of 38 % to 53 % by 2050 from 2019 levels (3.4 GtCO2 to 1.6–2.1 GtCO2), or compared to a 32 % to 43 % reduction in a baseline scenario in 2050.Steel companies are also lagging in setting clear emission reduction plans to achieve their targets. We found that 14 out of the 30 steel producers with targets did not provide an emission reduction plan. The most popular measures amongst the 16 companies that identified at least one measure to achieve their target in their emission reduction plans were hydrogen-based DRI (n = 14), enhanced use of renewable electricity (n = 13) and Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage (CCU/S) for blast furnaces (n = 9). While it is encouraging that the steel companies have started acting toward long-term deep decarbonisation, our findings suggest that there is a long way ahead and the action needs to be accelerated considerably.

Tackling Cross-Border Subsidies in the EU: The Need to Build on a Promising Start Part 1

In two recent rulings regarding anti-subsidy duties on imports from Egypt, the EU General Court confirmed that cross-border subsidies can be countervailed under the Basic Anti-Subsidy (AS) Regulation. According to the General Court, Belt and Road subsidies granted by China to subsidiaries of Chinese state-owned companies outside China can legitimately be attributed to the government of third countries through application of international law principles. This article looks at the General Court’s findings and the implications for further AS investigations against crossborder subsidies. Cross-border subsidies, General Court, Basic AS Regulation, Belt and Road Initiative, countervailing duties, SCM Agreement, ILC Articles

American Economic Stakeholder Sentiments towards Chinese Firms’ Innovation Capability: The Role of State Political Environment and Firm Ownership

Outward foreign direct investments from innovative Chinese firms pose challenges to American stakeholders regarding how to balance economic gains and nationalistic sentiment. Relying on the stakeholder management framework, we analyze the dual nature of American economic stakeholders’ sentiments towards innovative Chinese firms. Both positive and negative sentiments increase as Chinese companies’ innovative capability improves. While stakeholders in conservative-leaning states may temper their positive sentiment, their negative sentiment is mainly directed at Chinese state-owned companies. Our findings help to gain particular insight into the complex nature of stakeholder sentiment, a key element shaping multinational companies’ operating environment.

On Dammed Landscapes and Invasive Infrastructures

In this article I turn my attention to two hydropower plants, HPP Dabar and HPP Nevesinje, part of the massive Upper Horizons scheme, which is currently the largest infrastructural project in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Built by the China Energy Gezhouba and financed through a large loan from the Export–Import Bank of China, the enterprise forms a part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, an unprecedented global development programme that involves nearly half of the world’s countries. The project is being built on the Zalomka, one of the largest sinking rivers in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the world, and its potential impacts are hotly debated and may be extremely far reaching. As Rob Nixon has argued, the mega-dam projects in many postcolonial nations have ‘depended’ on both physical structure and metaphorical discourse on ‘submergence’: of ‘disposable people and ecosystems, but also on the submerged structures of dependence that lay beneath the flamboyant engineering miracles’ (2011: 167). Drawing on these reflections and insights from the energy humanities, blue humanities and infrastructure studies, I consider dams as concretizations that ‘harness, produce, materialise, and symbolise’ (neo)colonial power relations (Max Haiven (2013) ‘The dammed of the Earth: Reading the mega-dam for the political unconscious of globalization’, in Cecilia Chen, Janine MacLeod and Astrida Neimanis (eds) Thinking with Water, Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press). Thus, from this perspective, this infrastructural project could be seen not only as ‘Chinese invasion’ through the Belt and Road Initiative, but also an invasion of nature by the nation state, often constituted as the necessary means to pursue a view of national and regional integration towards globalized modernity. Finally, I discuss an invasion of the dominant narrative by resistance, turning attention to the anti-damming intersectional and coalitional work in the Balkans, which includes protests, marches, forums, artistic interventions, and legal pressure aimed at stopping both local and the Chinese state-owned companies from dredging and blocking the rivers. Intervening in the normalized view of the extractive zone – the article argues – these acts of resistance form part of a broad struggle against what the anthropologist Anne Spice calls ‘invasive infrastructures’ (2018) that numerous communities are fighting against in the region (‘Fighting invasive infrastructures’, Environment and Society 9: 40–56).

Characteristics, risk management and GMP standards of pharmaceutical companies in China.

The Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) is one of the gold standards by which governments worldwide judge modern pharmaceutical companies' production processes and product-safety standards. However, in all the nations, it is difficult to obtain real data about GMP inspection results, so conducting the related research is impossible. Taking advantage of a rare chance to obtain the on-site GMP inspection results in China, we have been able to initiate an empirical analysis of how company characteristics and risk management affect the GMP inspection results of certain pharmaceutical companies. The 2SLS method regression was employed in this study. Our four main findings are as follows. First, compared with Chinese state-owned companies, foreign commercial and private enterprises are held to higher standards. Second, the GMP inspection results tend to be better for those enterprises whose main sources of capital are not dependent on bank loans. Third, enterprises with higher fixed assets tend to receive the better GMP inspection results. Fourth, the longer the quality authorized staff has worked in a company, the better the GMP inspection results expected of that enterprise. These findings offer insights into inspections and production improvements in China and other GMP-compliant countries.

Chinese State-Owned Companies and Investment in Latin America and Europe

Chinese State-Owned Companies and Investment in Latin America and Europe

The PRC’s Foreign Aid to Developing Countries as a Tool to Protect Chinese Companies’ Investments against Political Risks

The article is exploring the PRC’s experience in using foreign aid tools to mitigate political risks for its companies’ foreign direct investments in the countries of Global South. The author compares Chinese approach with the Western one, and identifies key exclusive features of China’s efforts towards mitigating risks for its companies. In particular, it has been found that the Chinese state-owned companies (SOEs) are the main proponents of kickstarting foreign aid projects with the aim of mitigating risks. Such projects are often implemented by the contractors from China, and encompass constructing social infrastructure in the recipient country, as a “bonus” to the principal commercial activity. Political risks are mitigated via subsidized loan contract terms, containing serious consequences for the recipient in the event of broadly defined changes in the regulatory regime and force-majeure detrimental to Chinese entities. Chinese SOEs can also protect their investments against the recipient’s harmful actions by prompting the PRC government to stop the foreign aid transfers, or by simply abstaining from proposing new aid projects in the future. The emphasis of political risk mitigation through foreign aid is on the legal-governmental (regulatory) risks, while the extralegal risks, such as terrorist attacks, worker strikes and civil protests, are not directly addressed, which can be explained by the adherence of the PRC to the principle of non-interference in internal affairs.

Whether the Lean Management can Affect The Innovative Performance in the Manufacturing Industry – a Case Study of a Chinese State-Owned Company

With the rapid development of modern Chinese companies, small-and-medium companies play a more and more critical role. At the same time, the competition among Chinese SMEs is also intensifying. This paper proposes the significance of lean management under current enterprise management through the introduc-tion of lean management, how it affects innovation, and the case analysis of a manufacturing SME. The case analysis includes quality process management and improvement, waste elimination, employee participation, good leadership, and supplier relationship. These measures of lean management give a general under-standing of how the company inspires innovation and further show that LM has a remarkable effect on SMEs, especially in the manufacturing sector.

Brand Recognition, Interdepartmental Conflict, and Performance: An Investigation of Porter’s Differentiated Competitive Strategy Implementation in a Large Chinese Automobile Company

Due to the unique market context and consumer differences, Porter’s generic competitive strategy has often failed in China. This study examined the impacts of managerial factors on performance by using the company brand as an indicator of performance; furthermore, we discuss the management issues of Chang’an when adopting a differentiated competitive strategy. This research used a quantitative method to form a consumer cognition map and compared product brands with competitors. It also investigated the managerial factors of the case company that affected the implementation of a differentiated competitive strategy. Interviews of the managers from the case company were also conducted to provide an in-depth understanding of management issues. The results show that the case company, Chang’an, as a large state-owned automobile manufacturer, failed to generate satisfactory outcomes by implementing a differentiation strategy. The reasons for the unfavorable enterprise performance include unclear departmental role positioning, a lack of communication mechanisms, and missing evaluation mechanisms. This research offers an in-depth investigation of the application of Porter’s differentiated competitive strategy in a Chinese state-owned company (there has been little academic attention on this). Since many state-owned companies use similar management structures, the results of this research can help managers find management problems and fix them.

Untangling Organizational Change in a Chinese State-Owned Company: A Grounded Theory Case Study

In its zeal for organizational change, a Chinese state-owned enterprise encountered a myriad of impediments. This inductive case study aims to examine and untangle the roots of those impediments through grounded theory. The research results suggest that employees’ attitudes towards change, organizational aspiration for change, and change context affect the process of change. In particular, (1) employees with higher adaptive capability on change and lower professional status are inclined to have a more positive attitude towards change; (2) higher organizational performance and poor communication of reforms decrease organizational desire or inclination for change; (3) informal influence of internal information spread promotes acceptance of reform; and (4) external influence of consultants accelerates acceptance of change. As a result, S Group implemented corresponding unfreezing change strategies, which eventually won the support for change of a majority of employees. This engaged case study also provides new insights into Bourdieu’s Practice Theory as applied in the context of Chinese state-owned companies.

A data-driven decision-making framework for personnel selection based on LGBWM and IFNs

For any organization, personnel selection is regarded as one of the most critical and complex issues in human resource management. Due to the fuzziness and ambiguity in personnel selection, it was usually tackled by utilizing multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods. Previously developed MCDM methods for personnel selection have principally depended on experts’ preferences, which may lead to the bias and deviation caused by human cognitive limitations. With the development of information technology, many human resource (HR) data have accumulated within some organizations, making it possible to discover meaningful patterns in HR data based on data analytics algorithms (DAAs). These patterns do not depend on experts’ judgement and can objectively reflect the performance of personnel in several aspects. Thus, it is promising that integrating objective patterns obtained from HR data and experts’ judgement can make personnel selection more systematic and scientific. To tackle this complex scenario, we propose a data-driven decision-making framework that combines DAAs and MCDM method. The proposed framework can explore the underlying patterns in HR data and also consider experts’ judgement during the selection process. In this framework, a data-driven competency-based method is designed to mine out valuable information in HR data. In addition, for assisting multiple experts, a linear group best–worst​ method (LGBWM) is proposed to calculate the weights of criteria, and intuitionistic fuzzy numbers (IFNs) are used to help experts express their preferences. A personnel evaluation and selection (PLEAS) decision support system is also designed and developed to implement the framework better. In order to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed framework, a real-world case is conducted in a Chinese state-owned company, and the results demonstrate that our proposed framework is valid for solving data-driven personnel selection problems.

Why and When Temporary Workers Engage in More Counterproductive Work Behaviors with Permanent Employees in Chinese State-Own Enterprise: A Social Identity Perspective.

Why do temporary workers sharing the same working conditions as permanent employees still frequently engage in deviant behaviors that negatively affect the organization’s interests? Drawing on the theory of social identity, this articlr discusses the relationships among employment status, organizational identification, and counterproductive work behavior. Time-lagged data were collected from sample of 210 dyads of employees and corresponding supervisors from a large Chinese state-owned service company, to test hypothesis. Results showed that temporary workers engage in counterproductive work behaviors more frequently than permanent employees, and organizational identification plays a mediating role in this process. Turnover intention moderated the relationship between employment status and counterproductive work behavior (organizational identification). In terms of turnover intention, organizational identification and counterproductive work behavior, two types of employees did not exhibit a significant difference. However, when turnover intention increase, there was a sharper decline in organizational identification and a greater increase in counterproductive work behaviors among temporary employees than among permanent employees. Finally, the theoretical and practical implications of these findings and future research directions are discussed.

Review of the monograph by Alexandr Svetlicinii “Chinese State Owned Enterprises and EU Merger Control”

The review concerns the monograph «Chinese State Owned Enterprises and EU Merger Control», which analyzes the features of mergers and acquisitions in the European Union, with the participation of state-owned enterprises from the PRC. Main attention is paid to how the author of this monograph analyzes the influence of the Communist Party of China and the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council on the corporate governance of Chinese state-owned companies.

Стратегии интернационализации бизнеса китайских государственных нефтегазовых компаний

The article is devoted to the analysis of the specifics of the business international expansion of large Chinese state-owned companies in the oil and gas sector: China National Oil and Gas Corporation (CNPC), China Petrochemical Corporation (SINOPEC), China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC). The article examines the strategic guidelines of the companies, the factors influencing the strategies, formats and forms of expansion, regional specifics of business internationalization, trends in the development of activities in foreign markets. The problems of specialization and business diversification of the studied companies are considered. Special attention is paid to the role of the state in the processes of international expansion of Chinese oil and gas companies.

Forever foreign? Is there a future for Chinese people in Africa?

ABSTRACT Chinese migration to Africa has been limited both in size and scope until relatively recently. It was only in the late 1990s and the 2000s that significant numbers of Chinese migrants began arriving in Africa, with the first significant waves hitting South African shores. Chinese entrepreneurs, fortune seekers, and professionals, together with temporary workers – from across China – made their way in increasing numbers to destinations across the African continent. Many entered Africa with or following Chinese state-owned and private companies, on contracts to work on construction, oil, and mining projects. Beyond these large state-sponsored and private-sector projects, reports of the development of Chinatowns, Chinese shops, and Chinese farms and factories across the African continent have been circulating for nearly three decades. This paper examines these new, intensified Chinese flows to Africa and explores the possibilities of their future on the continent. Based on my in-depth examination of developments in South Africa, I argue that while the Chinese state's global ambitions and African ambivalence towards these latest arrivals influence Chinese migrant lives and destinies, the migrants themselves are also having impacts on their African host nations and changing the way we understand human flows.

Features of personnel management principles in developed countries and possibilities of using them in Kazakhstan

The article is devoted to one of the current problems of personnel management. Measures taken by the state to increase human capital to increase the economic growth rate of Kazakhstan were considered. The features of personnel management in such developed countries as China, Japan and the USA are studied. The research revealed the characteristics of personnel management in these countries. During the study of the Japanese model of personnel management, it was revealed that the Japanese model is oriented towards the long term. The Japanese prefer slow progress through advanced training to a long-term goal.Afeature of the Japanese model is lifelong hiring. Unlike Japan, the American promotion culture is aimed at short-term guidelines. The US prefers to hire people with innovative ideas and an aggressive spirit. In addition, it was revealed that the employment system in Chinese state-owned companies is close to the Japanese permanent employment system. The employment system in China's private companies is identical to the free employment system in the United States. Chinese companies are focused on professional skills and work experience. An analysis of the development and personnel policy of Walmart, which has various forms of internal recruitment depending on the country, is given. We studied the experience of this company in the conditions of the coronavirus pandemic. As a result of research, the need to take into account the peculiarities of the national mentality was identified. The application of the above HR management practices for our companies is justified.

Research on the internationalization strategy of Chinese state - owned oil companies in the Kazakhstan market

The article is devoted to the study of the activity of the People's Republic of China (China) in the world market. The purpose of this study is to study the international interaction of Chinese state-owned oil companies and identify the specifics of their behavior strategy in the Kazakhstan market. The subject of the research is the strategy of internationalization; the subject of the research is the Chinese state oil companies. As a methodology for this study, comparative analysis, the method of analysis and synthesis of information about the object of research, methods of analysis of statistical and expert data are used. Based on the research, the author concludes that expansion is used. Chinese state-owned oil companies strive to develop international cooperation, primarily based on historically established partnerships. The internationalization strategy prevailing in Chinese companies has its own characteristics depending on the partner country. Over twenty years, Chinese companies have confidently consolidated their positions in the oil and gas industry of Kazakhstan thanks to initial investments in the assets of Kazakhstani companies, in joint projects to develop new and modernize old fields, and to build new plants.

China’s Investment in African Ports: Spatial Distribution, Entry Modes and Investor Profile

Over the past decades, China's direct investment in Africa expanded significantly and became more diversified. The increased involvement of Chinese interests in Africa has intensified the debate on the benefits, modes and risks linked to these investments. Chinese state-owned companies have directed large amounts of expertise and resources to African ports, not only to deliver benefits to the investing parties, but also to contribute to a more effective and efficient African port industry. This paper presents an analysis of Chinese investments in and operation of African port infrastructure. Next to offering a comprehensive view on the spatial distribution of Chinese investments in African ports, this study elaborates on the specialization of major Chinese state-owned companies in terms of investment modes, and on the reasons behind the observed/expected geographical distribution of specific entry modes across Africa. The EPC + F + I mode (Engineering Procurement Construction + Finance + Investment) is the most common arrangement adopted by Chinese enterprises in view of port investment in Africa while also PPP type of arrangements are frequently used. China's enterprises are challenged to choose suitable modes when investing in African ports by taking into account their own attributes, the development status of the host countries and the port characteristics.

Are Socially Responsible Companies Really Ethical? The Moderating Role of State-Owned Enterprises: Evidence from China

The present research aims to explore the relationship between corporate social responsibility and earnings management (EM). For this study, we utilized the panel data of companies registered with the Shanghai and the Shenzhen stock exchanges. The data consists of 10years of financial data from 2010 to 2019. After a thorough investigation, we discovered that CSR hurts the EM practice, which mainly relates to the prevalence of the ethical stance and the moral stance in corporate decision-making. When firms engage in activities about CSR, they tend to improve their corporate image and their social image as the stakeholder satisfaction level increases. The results also indicate that, when firms engage in these types of activities, they tend to incorporate practices related to CSR as part of their corporate strategy. This also results in a higher moral standing amongst the decision-makers, and they prefer to reject malpractices, such as EM, as a result. In the case of the Chinese state-owned firms, the results indicate that these companies increasingly engage in real earnings management (REM), even though they have increased their CSR activities. The results point towards management opportunism with Chinese state-owned companies.

China’s Participation in European Container Ports: Drivers and Possible Future Scenarios

Les prises de participation chinoises dans les ports à conteneurs européens représentent aujourd’hui 10 % des volumes totaux, là où elles étaient quasiment inexistantes il y a dix ans. Elles sont le fait de deux entreprises publiques : COSCO et China Merchants Group (CMG). Cet article revient sur les facteurs explicatifs de cette croissance et propose trois scénarios relatifs à ces prises de participation chinoises dans les ports à conteneurs européens en 2025.