Analytical Comparison of German Owner’s Budget Estimate and Chinese Contractor’s Bid: A Case Study for a Warehouse Building Project in China

Nowadays, the need for scientific and modernized engineering cost management has been increasingly prominent. Hence, this study compared the differences of the quantities’ terms, the management philosophy, the related institutions (or specifications), and other factors in engineering cost management between China and Germany accompanied by a case study for a warehouse building project in China. There are two main parts. Firstly, according to the literature research, the comparative analysis was conducted on the engineering cost-control mode, the list of bills of quantities, and other parameters between China and Germany. On the basis of this, the “differences” between China and Germany especially in the bidding process were further studied with the empirical analysis of engineering cases, which is a supplementary argument to the theoretical analysis. Finally, several related suggestions were put forward, including proposing a set of “universal” bills of quantities (which can be understood by Chinese enterprises and also accepted by foreign-funded enterprises), the establishment of the whole process, a dynamic and information-based project cost-management system, cultivation of talents with the advanced management concept, and the development of international engineering companies and project-management companies with core competitiveness. The conclusions are expected to provide some references for China’s construction industry to further expand the international market and to increase the influences in global markets.

Is Home-Host Cultural Distance a Risk? Evidence from Outward Foreign Direct Investment by Chinese Enterprises

Cultural distance is always regarded as a “risk” in the decision making of enterprises involved in the outward foreign direct investment (OFDI), however, investment is a powerful driver of productivity growth and increased innovation capacity of enterprises in both countries. Is cultural distance a “risk” ? Using Hofstede's indicators and the Kogut and Singh index (1988), this paper calculates the cultural distance based on six cultural dimensions and further examines the effect of cultural distance on the outward foreign direct investment by Chinese enterprises and its mediating effects on the role of other factors influencing the decisions of multinationals. The results indicate that there is a nonlinear effect of cultural distance and the mediating effect of cultural distance is negative.

The Political Economy of the EU Approach to the Rohingya Crisis in Myanmar

European institutions have repeatedly represented the EU as an actor that can use the attractiveness of its market to promote human rights internationally. From this perspective, EU trade sanctions represent a hard power tool to push the government of states accused of major human rights violations to abide by international law. In its reaction to the Rohingya crisis in 2018, despite the European Parliament’s call for the lifting of Myanmar’s trade preferences, the Council of the EU stated that it would rather tackle the problem by taking a “constructive approach” based on dialogue. We provide a political-economy explanation of this choice, making a plausible case that the political pressures from European importers and exporters, not to jeopardise trade relations with Myanmar, prevailed over the demands of European protectionist groups and NGOs advocating a tougher position. The firms interested in maintaining preferential trade relations with Myanmar were primarily motivated by a desire to avoid a disruption of trade and investment links within global value chains (GVCs) so that they could continue competing with Chinese enterprises.

The Relationship between Employees’ Belief in a Just World and Sustainable Organizational Citizenship Behaviors in Chinese Enterprises: The Moderating Effect Model of Interpersonal Intelligence

To both survive and develop continuously, enterprises must overcome many kinds of competition and challenges. Cultivating employees' active and sustainable organizational citizenship behavior is important for enterprises to successfully cope with turbulence and uncertain events during their development. In this study, we investigated the development level of and factors influencing employees' organizational citizenship behavior in current organizations. By using the Belief in a Just World Scale, Organizational Citizenship Behavior Scale, and Interpersonal Intelligence Scale, we investigated 230 employees from 15 different enterprises. The results showed that belief in a just world, interpersonal intelligence, and organizational citizenship behavior were significantly positively correlated. Interpersonal intelligence played a moderating role between belief in a just world and organizational citizenship behavior; the organizational citizenship behavior of individuals with high interpersonal intelligence increased with the strengthening of the belief in a just world, and this increase was larger than that experienced by individuals with low interpersonal intelligence. This meant that under a certain level of belief in a just world, a high level of interpersonal intelligence was more conducive to promoting employees' sustainable organizational citizenship behavior.

China’s Consumers Have Different Purchase Motivations for International Enterprises and Chinese Enterprises

Many Chinese consumers believe the service attitude of salespeople is very important for consumers to buy a product. However, compare with many local China enterprises, many international enterprises do not seem to realise it. Which generals the question: are consumers’ motivations for purchasing from these two types of enterprises different? The paper describes using an international shopping mall (A) and a Chinese shopping mall (B) as examples. The researchers randomly distributed a questionnaire survey to 110 consumers and analysis questionnaire result via the stepwise regression model. The researchers found consumers purchase goods from international enterprises (A) because of gender, and consumers buy goods from Chinese enterprise (B) as their age and the service attitude of salespeople. This paper confirms that the service attitude of salespeople may not the advantage of international enterprises, but the drawback of the research does not consider consumers to have different purchase motives for different enterprises. In the conclusion, the researchers posit that future research should examine whether consumers’ purchase motivations affect international companies to make profit in the Chinese market

Chinese Mining Companies in Peru: Is There a Single Cause of Problems?

China’s dependence on the supply of mineral resources is becoming stronger than ever. The activity of Chinese investors in the mining industry on a global scale has increased significantly during the last years. Moreover, the activity of Chinese mining investors in the developing countries has some special characteristics such as large-scale projects and protests of local communities during their implementation. This article discusses the activities of Chinese mining companies in Peru, in which both of these conditions were present. The author analyzes the activities of “Shougang”, “Chinalco” and “MMG Ltd” in Peru. The hypothesis is as follows. If there is a special Chinese way of investing, the problems of listed investors (which lead to conflict with local communities) should have a single reason that is unique for all Chinese enterprises. In these conditions, investors should keep the distance between themselves and Peruvian authorities and the local citizens. As a result of the study, the conclusion is made that such reason cannot be identified at this stage. The causes of problems for each of the considered enterprises are unique, but not common for all of them. The origins of these problems are the economic situation, the bureaucratic problems of the Peruvian authorities, as well as the general trends in the relations between transnational mining companies and the Peruvians. At the same time, Chinese companies try to take into account the experience of their predecessors. Most likely, in the future that could possibly lead to greater openness and expansion of dialogue between investors, government and the public worldwide.

Discretionary Effort on Green Technology Innovation: How Chinese Enterprises Act when Facing Financing Constraints

Firm’s effort on Green technology innovation (hereafter, called G-innovation) is affected by financing constraints, and firm will make a discretionary choice according to its own situation, to achieve the maximization of self-interests. Based on the data of Chinese micro enterprises, firstly, we empirically analyze firms’ decision-making towards G-innovation when faced with financing constraints. It supports the view that financing constraints can hinder enterprise technological innovation. And we also make an explanation that the social benefits of green technology innovation are greater than personal benefits, which makes enterprises tend to reduce green technology innovation when facing financing constraints. Then we examine firms’ heterogonous behaviors under different internal attributes and external environments. The results reveal that: First, firms are reluctant to pay more efforts to G-innovation when faced with increased financing constraints. Second, firms with different attributes exhibit heterogeneous G-innovation. Political connections will change firms’ willingness to innovate, while the structure of property rights and the pollution degree will not. Third, firms under different external environment also exhibit heterogeneous G-innovation. When economic policy uncertainty increases, firms’ willingness to innovate weakens. The development of shadow banks fail to improve firm’s willingness to innovate.

Evaluation and Influence of Chinese Enterprises' Financial Efficiency Based on the Malmquist Index

This paper introduces a superefficiency financial efficiency model with undesirable output based on the features that the output of industrial enterprises contains desirable output as well as undesirable output. Furthermore, the Malmquist index model is constructed for financial efficiency dynamic study, and the spatial Durbin model is constructed for evaluation and impact of enterprises. According to the financial data of Chinese enterprises from 2007 to 2019, this paper evaluates the financial efficiency of Chinese interprovincial industrial enterprises dynamically and measures the influence levels of major impacts on the financial efficiency of Chinese interprovincial industrial enterprises quantitatively. As reported by this paper, the conclusions are as follows: (1) In reference to the financial efficiency dynamic study analysis, there is an obvious growth trend in the financial efficiency of Chinese interprovincial industrial enterprises in different years. Based on the horizontal analysis of financial efficiency, there is a relatively large gap in financial efficiency among Chinese interprovincial industrial enterprises. (2) From the separation factors of financial efficiency analysis, the main factor affecting the growth of the financial efficiency of Chinese industrial enterprises is the modification of technology, and the modification of technical efficiency has a minor impact. (3) In accordance with the impacts of enterprise efficiency analysis, several major factors influence the financial efficiency of Chinese industrial enterprises such as major business cost, operating profit, total liabilities, national capital, and the number of R&D personnel.