Path-Breaking Change and Strategic Asset Acquisition - Chinese Multinational Companies’ Management Obsession with Strategic Intent

Recent studies on Chinese multinational enterprises (CMNEs) have paid insufficient attention to their long-term objectives (strategic intents) and treated strategic assets as an abstract and context-free concept. This study puts strategic assets into the context of strategic intent, strategy change, and cross-border acquisitions (CBAs), shedding light on the relationships between these concepts and thus deepening the understanding of the critical role of strategic asset-seeking in CMNEs’ internationalization and global competitiveness building. Combining the strategic intent perspective with a resource-based view and drawing empirical evidence from ten CBAs by Chinese private-owned enterprises (POEs) in Europe and the USA, we reveal that CMNEs establish ambitious strategic intent early on in their journeys and persistently pursue it through CBAs of strategic assets and path-breaking strategy changes. Seven strategic types and four strategic change avenues are identified.
The findings of this study contribute to research on emerging market multinational enterprises (EMNEs) in general and in particular to a better understanding of their internationalization behaviour and rapid development, thereby helping Western companies interpret CMNEs’ internationalization activities more accurately.