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This paper aims to provide a comprehensive, systematic review of the literature on Industry 4.0 – and on the trends and implications of the digitalization of manufacturing – from the perspective of business and economics.

A bibliometric methodology was used, allowing to extract rigorously the relevant literature, leading to a purposefully constructed database of peer-reviewed publications depicting the state of the art in this area. A quantitative analysis of the key characteristics of – and trends emanating from – the literature was performed, and results were presented in a graphic way using the VOSViewer software as a mapping tool. Relevant thematic clusters were identified, and promising future research avenues were identified.

This literature is extremely recent – 90% of the publications are from 2019 and 2020, and the leading journal publishing in this area is the Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management. Key clusters identified relate digital transformation to value chains; a close link is observed between Industry 4.0 technologies and business models; a strong connection to sustainability is also clear; and the implications of Industry 4.0 for human resources management are, not surprisingly, extremely relevant.

This is, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the most comprehensive systematic review linking specifically Industry 4.0 to the business and economics literature, bridging with recent, state-of-the-art research in the economics/business and technological fields. This contribution may be very helpful to researchers interested in understanding the key trends and opportunities offered by this area.

The paper aims to investigate outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) by Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs), aiming to unveil whether the Chinese OFDI policy acted as a country-specific advantage (CSA) that has been turned by Chinese firms, particularly SOEs, into a firm-specific advantage (FSA).

Using a data set spanning 18 years (1996-2013) on international mergers and acquisitions (IM&As) by Chinese companies (SOEs and private-owned enterprises – POEs) and drawing on extant literature, the paper systematically compares the behavior of Chinese SOEs and POEs, aiming to identify differences in their behavioral patterns that indicate that SOEs have benefitted more from policy-induced advantages than their private counterparts.

Among other aspects, significant differences were found regarding the behavior of SOEs vis-à-vis POEs that seem to show that SOEs had greater support from public entities, leading them to close larger deals and purchase more companies/stakes in cash; acquire firms with greater debt (implying higher interest payments); and purchase smaller stakes than POEs (indicating that there are other objectives than control). This lends support to the assumption that Chinese SOEs are “sitting on piles of cash”, and that the availability of capital acted as a CSA that has been transformed into an FSA by the companies involved, notably by SOEs.

The comprehensive and large-scale data set used includes wholly owned SOEs, leaving out of this research partially owned SOEs. The findings of this paper have implications for the discussion on competitive neutrality and for the academic, managerial and public policy debate.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the only study, to date, that shows systematic differences in financing patterns of OFDI (notably via IM&As) by Chinese SOEs and POEs, among other behavioral characteristics of both types of companies when conducting FDI abroad, linking that to CSAs and FSAs induced by CSAs.

Alain Verbeke is professor of international business strategy and holds the McCaig Research Chair in management at the Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary. He was previously the director of the MBA programme, Solvay Business School, University of Brussels. He has also been visiting professor at Dalhousie University, the University of Toronto and the Université Catholique de Louvain, as well as an associate fellow of Templeton College (University of Oxford). He is presently academic associate of the Centre for International Business and Management, Judge Business School, University of Cambridge.

The scholarly attention devoted to entrepreneurship in the international business (IB) literature has been relatively modest. Most of the ‘mainstream’ literature on entrepreneurship in management studies (Casson, 1982; Covin & Slevin, 1991; Lumpkin & Dess, 1996; Shane, 2000) has focused on issues such as the determinants of entrepreneurial behaviour and the characteristics of individual entrepreneurs, thereby only occasionally addressing the international context in which entrepreneurial ventures may develop, and the ways in which this international context influences entrepreneurial decision making.