The Determinants Of Partner Selection For The Chinese Contractors To Exploit The Market Of The High-Speed Rail In America

The development of American high-speed railway (HSR) catches up with the third waves of international HSR development, while falling behind traditional countries, namely France, Japan, Germany, and emerging countries, such as China and South Korea. Its first HSR was formally into operation in July 2013, and then a national HSR development plan was formulated to build 11 high-speed corridors in 10 regions with the purpose of creating inland rapid transit corridor. Based on the background, the study explores determinants of partner selection for China's HSR contractors to enter the American market. HSR construction contractors and track equipment manufacturers are components of the samples of this study.By using social network analysis (SNA) method with the Ucinet software of HSR industry and technological cooperation between enterprises, it is aimed to analyze the exchange of resources Status.Empirical regression analysis results reveal that:(1) Cooperation between civil engineering contractors and equipment manufacturers exists, the density of Railway equipment manufacturers alliance network surpasses industry-wide, civil contractor network density, implying better network completeness. (2) The influence of factors vary with the project type and different background. ? Inregression of HSR industry, social values, cultural distance, the total return on assets and firm size are strongly supported. The greater the social value, the more direct link a firm possesses, endowed with more indirect contact at the same time and the greater chance of choice for direct or indirect partners, the existence of cultural differences bring management problems, which directly influences the profitability of the investment, financial commitments, spreads the risk of financial ability. Firm size effectively promotes enterprise economies of scale, organization image, and improve the ability to overcome minimum efficient scale barriers. ?To civil engineering contractors and track equipment manufacturers, social values are key factors. The smaller the cultural differences, the greater the probability of cooperation between the civil contractor. The greater cultural differences, the greater possibility of cooperation between rail equipment manufacturers. Civil engineering contractors attach importance to firm size.?Social value and firm size are key factors of Chinese contractors' partner selection.Cultural differences, social values and the total return on assets are the key consideration for foreign contractors selecting partners.The main contributions of the dissertation are summarized as follows. (1)providing policy suggestions for the Chinese contractors, by making an empirical analysis of the similarities and differences between various contractors; (2)providing advice for the Chinese contractors' cooperation mode, according to the specific key influence factors of partner selection.