Cite as:
Liu W, Dicken P, 2006, "Transnational corporations and ‘obligated embeddedness’: foreign direct investment in China’s automobile industry" Environment and Planning A 38(7) 1229 – 1247
Download citation data in RIS format

Transnational corporations and ‘obligated embeddedness’: foreign direct investment in China’s automobile industry

Weidong Liu, Peter Dicken

Received 29 June 2004; in revised form 7 December 2004

Abstract. With the aid of an empirical case study of the automobile industry in China, we explore how, under certain political – economic conditions, the investments of transnational corporations (TNCs) can be shaped to meet the state’s objectives. We develop the concept of ‘obligated embeddedness’ to capture the dynamics of this process. We show that foreign direct investment in the automobile industry in China is a type of market-led and embedded investment which is characterised by joint ventures and the follow-up network configurations. However, to achieve such obligated embeddedness on the part of TNCs—and for the state and its citizens to gain its benefits—the state not only has to have the theoretical capacity to control access to assets located within its territory, but also the power actually to determine such access.

Restricted material:

 Full-text PDF size: 287 Kb

 References  27 references, 5 with DOI links ()

Your computer (IP address: 54.224.75.101) has not been recognised as being on a network authorised to view the full text or references of this article. If you are a member of a university library that has a subscription to the journal, please contact your serials librarian (subscriptions information).