The Imprinting Effects Of Ceos On Corporate OFDI In Belt And Road Countries: The Study Of Chinese Listed Firms

Abstract

This research scrutinized the effects of CEOs’ certain imprints on their strategic decision to have Outward Foreign Direct Investment (OFDI) in countries along the Belt and Road, taking the Chinese Stock Exchange Market as the research scope. By adopting the Logit and Tobit models, the empirical results elucidated the imprint of overseas experience exerts a significant positive impact on CEOs’ decision to have OFDI in Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) countries, however, the imprints of communist ideology and sent-down experience of CEOs both had significant negative impacts. And the state-owned enterprises (SOE), as the moderator variable, could strengthen the impact of such imprints. The imprint of the early contact with the Internet had a positive but not significant effect on the corporate strategy of conducting OFDI in BRI countries.

This study advocated for the importance of studying OFDI from an individual perspective and called on governments and countries along the BRI to adopt measures to fortify the positive role of imprints and mitigate the negative effects, with the purpose of better attracting OFDI from Chinese listed companies.