Transnationalizing intrapreneurship of Chinese private investment in Africa

Abstract

The paper investigates the structures, forces, and actors that drive and constrain transnationalizing intrapreneurship—the overseas business initiatives taken by subsidiaries—under Chinese private investment in Africa. Drawing upon the economic-geographic literature on entrepreneurship, it integrates process- and agency-perspectives to understand the interplay between political-economic contexts, institutional structures, and leadership actions in shaping the intrapreneurial endeavors of Chinese private firms. The process perspective entails seeing intrapreneurial ventures not as singular events but a recursive development of resources, capabilities, and networks in transnational contexts. The agency perspective emphasizes the motivations and actions of subsidiary leaders in charting out new spaces of business opportunities, while also acknowledging the embeddedness of these intrapreneurs in the broader institutional and political-economic landscapes of both host and home countries. The empirical analyses draw upon a multi-year ethnographic research with a Chinese automobile assembler in Ethiopia. Discussions of the firm’s internationalization trajectory—initial market venture, subsidiary business expansion, and recent decline in intrapreneurial momentum—over the past two decades offer a nuanced understanding of the contingent, context-specific, and fluid nature of transnationalizing intrapreneurship associated with Chinese private investment in Africa.