Effects of alliance experience gained before regulatory change in China on subsequent entry-mode preference
研究跨国企业在中国2003年监管改革前积累的联盟经验如何影响改革后对收购模式的偏好，发现联盟多样性促进收购偏好，而联盟强度则削弱这一效应。
This study examines how multinational enterprises' (MNEs) alliance experience accumulated under regulatory constraint shapes their subsequent entry-mode preferences following institutional liberalization. Leveraging China's 2003 reform permitting foreign acquisitions as a quasi-natural experiment, we disentangle competing experiential mechanisms—external market learning and internal governance inertia. We decompose pre-2003 alliance experience into two dimensions: diversity (breadth of partnerships) and intensity (length of alliance reliance). Using longitudinal data on 1782 MNEs from 40 countries (2003–2019), we find that alliance diversity increases the likelihood of post-liberalization acquisition preference, whereas alliance intensity does not exert an independent effect but attenuates the positive impact of diversity. These findings demonstrate that experience is not monolithic: learning accumulated under institutional constraint generates distinct and interacting strategic consequences. Regulatory liberalization does not reset firms to a blank slate; instead, governance legacies condition how newly available strategic options are evaluated.