关键词: 企业并购投资, 区位选择, 区域发展, 地域根植性, 公司地理

Abstract:

With the context of globalization and industrial upgrading, cross-border and domestic mergers and acquisitions (M&As) play an important role in facilitating the shifting of production elements and decision-making power among different sectors and places. Therefore, M&As are viewed as an determinant force to promote resource allocation, enterprise upgrading, industrial transformation and regional development, and M&A and related issues have attracted considerable attention form scholars in economic geography. More recently, under the profound impacts of financial crisis on global economy, cross-border and domestic M&As have undergone an rapid growth around the world. Especially, M&A initiated by Chinese multinational and listed corporations enjoyed fast growth with the development of China economy. And Chinese corporations and their investment have played an increasingly role in the global economic recovery and regional sustainable development. Based on the existed theoretical frameworks and empirical methodologies, this article applies spatial analysis and measurement model, and focuses on the geographical distribution of domestic M&A and involving firms in regional China. Particular attention will be given to the spatial correlations between acquirer and target firms. What’s more, highlighting the importance of regional characteristics and local embeddedness, we try to uncover the driving forces and dynamics of the changing distribution of domestic M&As in regional China. There are some illuminating findings in this article. First, the spatial pattern of acquirer and target firms shows a characteristic of co-agglomeration, and the geographical distribution of involving firms is similar to the T-shaped pattern of regional development and core-periphery urban hierarchy system in recent China. Second, domestic M&As and involving firms tend to concentrate in more developed provinces and metropolitan areas, such as Beijing, the Pearl River Delta and the Yellow River Delta. Although domestic M&As in the central and western China has undergone an increase, the regional disparities in M&As tend to be solidification. Firms located in major metropolises such as Beijing and Shanghai more play the role as acquirers in M&A events, while firms located in the central and western China, especially resource-exhausted regions, more takes the role as targets. Third, enterprise investment and related locational choices have been profoundly influenced by regional characteristics such as economic, social and institutional context. We find that the influential factors of the distribution of acquirers are similar to that of targets. The developed stock and financial market, skilled labor and attractive innovative milieu are the determinant forces of the geographical agglomeration of domestic M&As and involving firms in regional China. Meanwhile, the regional differences in economic development, incentive policies, industrial and ownership structure are the influential factors of the changing distribution of Chinese domestic M&As. Moreover, the driving dynamics of geographical concentration and dispersion of domestic M&As are evolving along with the changing economic and institutional context.

Key words: enterprise merger and acquisition, location choice, regional development, embeddedness, Corporate Geography