Lost In Translation: Studying the Antecedents of Corporate Venture Capital in China

Entrepreneurial ventures are a source of innovation and economic growth. Nowadays, established firms are instrumental in funding and supporting these ventures, a practice known as Corporate Venture Capitalists (CVC). Yet, most scholarly work is focused on the United States. This is unfortunate as China hosts a vibrant entrepreneurial setting, which is second only to the USA. We therefore explore the antecedents to CVC investment in China. Our contributions are threefold. First, we undertake a major data effort; leveraging five international and Chinese databases. Second, we show the CVC antecedents a researcher observe are sensitive to the choice of a database. Third, we construct an integrated dataset and compare the findings to US-based patterns. We uncover different industry factors are prominent in the Chinese setting.