Abstract

The Political Economy of China Graduate Discussion Group is delighted to invite you to a presentation by Dr Jin Zhang, Lecturer in International Business and China at the Judge Business School.

Please RSVP either by email at vm314@cam.ac.uk or on the facebook event page.

ABSTRACT :

This seminar will consider the central proposition that the behaviour of Chinese multinational corporations is determined by the national characteristics of the state structures and state-business relations. Two strands of theoretical approaches, the political economy approach and the economic sociology perspective, suggest three key causal variables are particularly crucial in determining the behaviour of multinational enterprises: the institutional structures of state economic and political agencies, the organizational configuration of business actors, and the state-firm policy linkages. This seminar will look at corporate governance mechanisms in the Chinese oil majors and their patterns of overseas investments and show how these are conditioned by the evolving national institutional structure of political and economic agencies, their market position, and inter-firm relations.

PRESENTER ’S BIOGRAPHY :

Dr Jin Zhang is University Lecturer in International Business and China at the Judge Business School, Fellow of Wolfson College and Deputy Director of the Cambridge China Executive Leadership Programme. She teaches undergraduate, postgraduate and MBA courses on topics such as international business economics, political economy of technology policy, and comparative studies on multinational firms and large Chinese firms. Her current researches focus on state-business relations and multinational corporate behaviour, multinational corporate structure and governance, and the political economy of China’s large commercial aircraft industry. Her research books include Catch-up and Competitiveness in China: Large Firms in the Oil Industry (Routledge, 2004) and Global Business Revolution and Cascade Effect (With P.Nolan and C. Liu, Palgrave 2007). Both books have been published in Chinese by Nankai University Press. She has published papers in journals such as Cambridge Journal of Economics, World Development and Journal of Peking University (Socials Sciences). Her latest paper on China’s oil industry and international investment was published in the Handbook on China and Developing Countries edited by Carla P. Freeman (Edward Elgar, 2015). She serves on the editorial board of Journal of Chinese Economic and Business Studies.