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.