Facilitator or inhibitor? The effect of host-country intellectual property rights protection on China’s technology-driven acquisitions
基于2008-2020年中国上市公司在29个国家的面板数据，研究发现东道国知识产权保护强度与中国技术驱动型并购数量呈倒U型关系，且该关系受母国与东道国经济距离而非政治距离的削弱。
Acknowledging the importance of technology-driven acquisitions for China, and of host-country intellectual property rights protection (IPRP) in the Tech Cold War era, this study – drawing on institutional-based and springboard logics – investigates the effects of host-country IPRP on China’s technology-driven acquisitions. Based on panel data of 377 country/year observations of Chinese listed firms in 29 countries between 2008 and 2020, our results illustrate an inverted U-shaped relationship between the strength of host IPRP institutions and the quantity of China’s technology-driven acquisitions. This inverted U-shaped relationship is weakened by home-host economic distance, rather than political distance. Clearly, host-country IPRP matters in Chinese firms’ location choices for technology-driven acquisitions and those host countries with IPRP that is either too weak or too strong are unattractive to Chinese acquirers. Our study responds to the debate about the inconsistent findings of IPRP’s effects on foreign investments, and enriches the research on springboard internationalization.