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Journal of Innovation Management Tao, Zhanming, Xiaoguang JIM 1, 1 (2013) 108-124 Chinese firms’ outward FDI entry mode choice: The role of ownership and network 1 1 2 Bai Tao , Jin Zhanming , Qi Xiaoguang 1School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China baitao2010@, jinzhm@ 2Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, Cambridge,UK xiaoguang.qi@ Abstract. What determines the Chinese firms’ outward foreign direct investment (FDI) entry mode choice, and do they behave differently from the firms from developed countries? To answer this question, this exploratory study firstly summarizes the attributes of the FDI entry modes, including greenfield investment, acquisition, and joint venture. Further based on the different attributes of these three modes, we analyze how Chinese firms choose the entry mode from the role the ownership and network perspectives, which are the important characteristics of Chinese firms. Keywords. entry mode, ownership, network 1 Introduction Internationalization has been widely considered as the dominant tendency of our time (Mathews, 2006), and entry mode choice as one of the most critical decisions during the international expansion, one of the key strategic decisions during the firms’ development (Brouthers and Brouthers, 2001; Luo, 2001). There are theories widely applied to analyze the entry mode choice, including the transaction cost theory, resource based view, and institution based view, which have been considered as the