Lu Jiang, Qiangbing Chen and Yali Liu
In many cross‐cultural management studies, culture and cultural differences across nations typically are assumed to be constant. The focus is on the impact of culture on other…
Abstract
Purpose
In many cross‐cultural management studies, culture and cultural differences across nations typically are assumed to be constant. The focus is on the impact of culture on other variables, such as the performance of multinational enterprises. However, is it possible that economic globalization results in cultural globalization? If yes, by how much? The purpose of this paper is to provide some evidence through studying the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) on the Chinese culture.
Design/methodology/approach
An observable social indicator to represent each dimension of cultural value is chosen and statistical models are used to test whether FDI has significant impact on these indicators, after controlling for economic development level. Also this paper investigates whether FDI from a different cultural background has different effects on the Chinese culture.
Findings
Using data from major Chinese cities, it is found that FDI has significant effects on the degree of future orientation, performance orientation and in‐group collectivism. Also this paper found that FDI from the USA and the UK has a significant and negative effect on the degree of assertiveness; FDI from Japan, and Singapore, and the USA, and the UK has significantly negative effects on the degree of performance orientation; FDI from Japan and Singapore has a significantly positive effect on the degree of in‐group collectivism.
Originality/value
Unlike the traditional method of measuring culture values through what people say (interview or survey), this approach relies on what people do. This method helps avoid the measurement distortions caused by self‐deception and impression management problems with survey approach. In addition, this is believed to be the first study to test the impact of FDI on the change of culture values through econometric models.
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Qiangbing Chen, Yali Liu and Lu Jiang
The paper aims to study the impact of cultural differences on the ownership structure of international joint ventures in China. It is reasoned that foreign investors, when faced…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper aims to study the impact of cultural differences on the ownership structure of international joint ventures in China. It is reasoned that foreign investors, when faced with larger culture‐related investment uncertainties, may have the incentive to acquire more control rights to contain the risks by acquiring more equity shares in the joint ventures.
Design/methodology/approach
Data on international joint ventures in China were used to test the theory. The data contain 941 observations from Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Tianjing, covering a 13‐year time span. Pooled ordinary least square is used in the model estimation.
Findings
Cultural distance between China and foreign countries was found to increase the foreign equity share in the joint ventures, a finding contrary to traditional view. In addition, it was found that cultural distance in different dimensions does not play an equal role in affecting foreign equity shares. Last, there is significant evidence that the allocation of ownership between foreign and domestic investors in the joint ventures is influenced by the investor's relative importance in supplying different types of resources.
Originality/value
The paper introduces a new perspective into the study of culture and international joint venture. Foreign investors may be able to reduce investment risk by increasing equity shares, which gives them more internal control, in international joint ventures. In contrast, the traditional view is that larger cultural distance tends to discourage foreign equity ownership.
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Abstract
Details
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Qiangbing Wang, Shutian Ma and Chengzhi Zhang
Based on user-generated content from a Chinese social media platform, this paper aims to investigate multiple methods of constructing user profiles and their effectiveness in…
Abstract
Purpose
Based on user-generated content from a Chinese social media platform, this paper aims to investigate multiple methods of constructing user profiles and their effectiveness in predicting their gender, age and geographic location.
Design/methodology/approach
This investigation collected 331,634 posts from 4,440 users of Sina Weibo. The data were divided into two parts, for training and testing . First, a vector space model and topic models were applied to construct user profiles. A classification model was then learned by a support vector machine according to the training data set. Finally, we used the classification model to predict users’ gender, age and geographic location in the testing data set.
Findings
The results revealed that in constructing user profiles, latent semantic analysis performed better on the task of predicting gender and age. By contrast, the method based on a traditional vector space model worked better in making predictions regarding the geographic location. In the process of applying a topic model to construct user profiles, the authors found that different prediction tasks should use different numbers of topics.
Originality/value
This study explores different user profile construction methods to predict Chinese social media network users’ gender, age and geographic location. The results of this paper will help to improve the quality of personal information gathered from social media platforms, and thereby improve personalized recommendation systems and personalized marketing.