Impact of China's Outward Foreign Direct Investment on Enterprise Performance

The present study seeks to address two fundamental questions.( 1) Does outward foreign direct investment( OFDI) enhance enterprise performance ultimately?( 2) How does this effect come about? A new dataset from the years 2011 to 2016 based on the micro-data of 88 Chinese multinational-listed enterprises was used to test research hypotheses with the mediating effect modeling approach. The study results reveal that:( 1) the investment intensity has a positive influence,while investment span has a negative influence on enterprise performance;( 2) the enhanced innovation capability can considerably increase the enterprise performance,while investment intensity and span both hinder the upgrading of innovation capability; and( 3)the innovation capability of an enterprise plays a partial intermediary role among investment span and enterprise performance. However,there is no mediating effect between investment intensity, innovation ability, and enterprise performance.