Foreign investors' choices in China: going it alone or in partnership?

This article argues that sino-foreign joint ventures (SFJVs) and wholly foreign-owned enterprises (WFOEs) have been influenced by a number of ongoing changes, for example, government policy toward foreign investment, indigenous management practices, human resource management practices and the nature of investment. In its overview of the longitudinal changes in these four areas, it suggests that foreign investors do not necessarily make an either WFOE or SFJV decision when considering their desirable mode of operation in China. Meanwhile, it argues that multinational corporations should take a dynamic approach to constantly re-position themselves as SFJVs in their business plans with respect to the mentioned areas, so as to achieve the best result as China enters the WTO. Finally, this analysis sets out a preliminary ‘Dynamic Positioning Model’ of these two modes of operation in China, which serves as a foundation on which further hypotheses can be built.