On the morning of Nov. 27th2012, Workshop for GRIIS—Newcastle(Australia) Joint Research Project, which lasted for one day and a half, was opened in Room B106 of No. 6 Teaching Building on North Campus of GDUFS.
Professor Li Qing, secretary general of GRIIS, Professor S. Nicholas, former vice president of University of Newcastle, and the research teams from both sides attended the Workshop.
Participant having a heated discussion
The theme on the first day was enterprise restructuring. Prof. S. Nicholas gave the opening remarks. He regarded this joint project an effort of cooperation between GDUFS and Newcastle and also between two countries. He highly acknowledged the strong academic competence demonstrated by the team led by Prof. Sui Guangjun. He also recognized that two sides had achieved a lot in questionnaire designing, interview and data input, noting that this seminar was of great significance for the up-coming work. During the workshop, two teams carried out in-depth discussions on how to utilize the existing data to write a policy report in accordance with the requirement of government in a joint effort.
Then, Prof. Li Qing presented her draft report outline, which falls into nine parts: 1. Introduction. 2. Multinational and Chinese Firms in Global Economic Crisis. 3. Environmental Change and Enterprise Restructuring: Concept, Mode and Analysis Framework. 4. Sample Characteristics of Guangdong Firms and Multinational Firms Located in Guangdong. 5. Guangdong Firms and Their Environment: Compared with Multinational Firms Located in Guangdong. 6. Strategic Changes of Guangdong Firms in the Global Economic Crisis: Compared with Multinational Firms Located in Guangdong. 7. Knowledge Acquisition by Guangdong Firms and Technology Transfer of Multinational Firms in Guangdong in the Global Economic Crisis. 8. Decision-Making Mode of Guangdong Firms: Compared with Multinational Firms Located in Guangdong. 9. Conclusion and Prospect. Newcastle’s outline takes the subsidiaries as the central subject. Prof. Nicolas saw the common views shared by the two teams in report structure and analysis, which provided a good basis for paper writing.
After a round of heated discussion, two teams reached a consensus that by January 15th, a package of three reports would be finished based on the existing data. Two of the reports would respectively elaborate on restructuring of Chinese enterprises located in Guangdong and of multinational subsidiaries in China. The third one would be a general combination of the first two.
On the afternoon of the 27th, Dr. Jason McGovern continued the workshop with a presentation titledDecision-making on the Restructuring of Multinational Subsidiaries in China. Dr. Jason talked from the perspectives of decision-making, strategy development and final decisions. Decision-making, according to him, was the process of exploring resources and sharing knowledge. Both corporation and individual team could exert influence on decision-making. Knowledge was highlighted by him as a key for decision-making. In China, the case is that many firms would rather talk to clients to get a better idea of their own strength and drawback than buy official reports which are in most cases out of date. During the financial crisis, many major multinationals made incorrect decisions because they failed to get the real situation in China. Dr, Jason adopted qualitative analysis and case study as approaches. As to the selection of interviewees, he laid down some limits: They should have undergone tremendous changes, with more than 50% foreign holdings, over 100 staff, with financial date for reference, solid subsidiaries and top management team including CEO and senior positions who are core members directly responsible for the changes. For the whole, the companies should be diverse in scale, sector, type of changes and investor, in order to make comparisons possible. He explained with three cases that the performance of a subsidiary was related to the trust relation between the parent and subsidiary and the importance of the subsidiary. He concluded that it would make good outcomes if the company made the most of the knowledge of local circumstances and experience.
Dr. Brendan Boyle presented three reports addressing to three issues respectively. His first report was “Opportunities to explore antecedents to dynamic competitive strategy in China”, pointing that the core of this study lay in the change of strategy. The second one was “Opportunities to explore the growing importance of employment relations in China”, in which he not only covered the significance and trend of employment relations in the long term but also applied his theory to local environment to testify. Finally, in his report titled “Opportunities to explore Top Management Team (TMT) composition effects on chance & performance”, he concluded factors affecting top management teams.
GRIIS research fellow Dr. Yuan Jing gave a presentation named“The Strategic Flexibility and Shift of Market Focus during the Economic Crisis”. She held that the international business was recognized by most researchers to be flexible under uncertain circumstances. Export-oriented companies could switch loss caused by the decrease of sales in the domestic market into the foreign market, when they faced changes in currency rate or quick recession in domestic market. She stepped up to three propositions: 1. during economic crisis, the international flexibility of Chinese companies is positively related to its profitability. 2. During economic crisis, the shift of market focus from foreign markets to domestic markets is positively related to the company’s profitability. 3. During economic crisis, the innovation campaigns launched by the company will affect the relationship between the first two propositions.
On the 28th, Prof. S. Nicholas presented his report—“On the Western Literature about Chinese FDI”. First, He introduced the Chinese FDI model from four aspects: the rise of FDI, location, high risks and loan arbitrage. Then, he adopted OLI and LLL models to make comparisons, pointing the cognitive discrimination in the decisions made by Chinese managers. Later, he explained the choices made by Chinese enterprises. Finally, he rounded up with 12 testable propositions.
GRIIS research fellow Dr. Shen Minghao gave a presentation on “Institutional Analyses on the Guiding of Mergers and Acquisitions of Chinese Enterprises”.His report is based on the phenomenon that Chinese enterprises have shown a great passion for resource-oriented M&A. Dr. Shen explained the reasons and drew a competition landscape between the South and the North. To further develop his ideas, he introduced an equilibrium model of four elements constituting enterprise internationalization to illustrate the current balance and its trend. In the end, he anticipated that the equilibrium model of the four elements would be testified. Although Chinese international strategy at present would lock the original balance, there are emerging factors to break the balance.
Dr. Brendan Boyle reported on “Notes of Research Design”, focusing on the criteria in research design. The primary issue is to find out disparities and gaps, with qualitative method, qualitative method and the combination of the two. Case study draft includes research questions and reviews on the background information of enterprises. The basic framework contains the theoretical basis, appropriate cases, theoretical test and integration of documents, investigations and interviews.
Photo of the research teams
At the end of the Workshop, participants from China and Australia had a further discussion about the keynote speeches and reached a consensus about the schedule of research paper and government report. Both sides showed great confidence about the cooperation and promised to strengthen future communication through Skype and email. The Workshop was successfully concluded in heated discussion.
