Rent-seeking at Home, Capturing Market Share abroad: The Domestic Determinants of the Transnationalization of China State Construction Engineering Corporation

Abstract

How do the Chinese central state and central state-owned construction enterprises interact with one another as China’s overseas contracting unfolds in the post-corporatization period? Building upon a neo-institutional analysis of the principal–agent relationship, this article finds that contrary to most of the accusations leveled against the global outreach of Chinese SOEs, state-backed transnationalization is by no means state-dominated. SOE managers’ continuous bureaucratic ties enable the firm to navigate through China’s gigantic but fragmented bureaucracy in favor of corporate commercial interests, which reflects the negotiated nature of the state–SOE relationship in the course of transnationalization.