The Impact Of Chinese Enterprises’ Outward Foreign Direct Investment On Technological Innovation

Under the background of the deepening of the international division of labor,Chinese enterprises are facing increasingly fierce market competition.Innovation can help enterprises enhance their core competitiveness and obtain excess profits.At the same time,improving the level of technological innovation of enterprises will help China transform into a “manufacturing power”.The further promotion of strategies such as “going out” and “One Belt,One Road” has enabled Chinese enterprises to participate more in transnational cooperation.Today,China’s outward foreign direct investment(OFDI)has achieved remarkable results,with great results in terms of scale,coverage and distribution.It is of great significance to study the impact of enterprises’ outward foreign direct investment on technological innovation,which will help enterprises to further improve their own technological level and gain certain advantages in the market.In order to explore the impact of Chinese enterprises’ OFDI on technological innovation,this paper first reviews and sorts out the existing relevant literature,and then analyzes the influence mechanism of Chinese enterprises’ OFDI on technological innovation at the theoretical level,and puts forward four impact mechanisms.The paper also analyzes the current situation of China’s OFDI and enterprises’ technological innovation.In terms of empirical analysis,this paper uses the data of Chinese listed companies from 2008 to 2021 as samples,and selects propensity score matching and difference-in-difference model to test the impact of OFDI on technological innovation.The results show that:(1)OFDI will significantly improve the level of technological innovation of enterprises,and its dynamic impact will be strong,and it will continue to increase with time.(2)OFDI enterprises will enhance their technological innovation capabilities by further increasing management costs,overseas business income,market competitiveness and government subsidies,namely through reverse technology spillover effect,investment income feedback mechanism,competition effect and the government subsidies mechanism.(3)After distinguishing the nature of enterprise ownership,investment mode and region,this paper finds that the ownership nature of private and state-owned enterprises,and the enterprises making outward foreign direct investment which are located in eastern and non-eastern regions can significantly improve the quantity and quality of enterprise innovation,and the promotion role of state-owned enterprises and enterprises located in non-eastern regions is more significant.Outward foreign direct investment by enterprises undertaking greenfield investment and cross-border M&A can increase the number of enterprise innovations,and the role of enterprises in cross-border M&A is more obvious.From the perspective of investment motivation,market-seeking,efficiency-seeking and resource-seeking OFDI all have obvious effects on the technological innovation level of enterprises,while only strategic asset-seeking OFDI has no obvious impact on enterprise technological innovation.In order to enable enterprises to better upgrade the level of technological innovation and enhance competitiveness through OFDI.This paper puts forward the following suggestions for the government and enterprises,and for the government:(1)further establish and improve the legal system for OFDI.(2)Improve policies related to public services for OFDI.(3)Strengthen guidance for overseas investment regions and industries,and guide the rational development of enterprises’ foreign investment.(4)Increase support for domestic research and development.(5)Continue to strengthen foreign investment cooperation with countries along the “Belt and Road”.There are the following suggestions for enterprises:(1)Enterprises should pay attention to improving their own innovation capabilities.(2)Pay attention to their own capital accumulation and ability to obtain funds.(3)It is necessary to fully grasp international rules and market characteristics to achieve precise investment.