and internationalization level. For example, Collins
(1990) made a comparative analysis of 133 of the
world's top 500 enterprises and found that there was
a negative correlation between enterprise
performance and internationalization in developing
countries (Wang, Hu, 2006). Wang Guoshun and Hu
Sha (2006) conducted an empirical study on
manufacturing export-oriented listed enterprises in
Shanghai and Shenzhen, and also came to the
conclusion that enterprise internationalization has a
negative impact on performance (Lu, Beamish,
2001). After that, scholars also continue to realize
that the internationalization level and performance of
enterprises may not be a simple linear relationship,
that is, there can be a threshold. After exceeding this
threshold, there may be a quadratic parabolic
relationship. For example, Lu (2001) and others'
Empirical Research on 164 small and medium-sized
enterprises in Japan from 1986 to 1997 shows that the
internationalization level and performance of
enterprises show a similar U-shaped relationship
(Zhang, Chen, 2017). Domestic scholars Zhang
Xiaotao and Chen Guomei (2017) also draw a
conclusion that the two show a U-shaped relationship
by analyzing the data of 180 Chinese enterprises from
2010 to 2014 (Geringer, Beamish, Dacosta, 1989);
Through the transaction cost theory, many scholars
believe that the increasing transaction scale will lead
to the rising cost, so it presents an inverted U-shape,
and use empirical research to verify this result. For
example, Geringer (1989) conducted an empirical
study on the top 100 large enterprises in the United
States and Europe from 1977 to 1981, and obtained
the conclusion that the internationalization level and
performance of enterprises show an inverted U-
shape.
On the basis of combing the previous domestic
and foreign scholars' existing literature on enterprise
performance and internationalization, it is found that
at different time points, using the data of different
types of enterprises in different countries, the
relationship between enterprise internationalization
level and performance is also different. So the
purpose of this paper is to analyze the interna-
tionalization level and enterprises performance on the
basis of conforming to China's economic environ-
ment conditions, so as to get a convincing conclusion.
2 RESEARCH DESIGN
2.1 Samples and Data Sources
This paper takes the electronic manufacturing
enterprises listed in Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share
market from 2015 to 2019 as the research sample. In
order to ensure the authenticity and reliability of the
research data, the sample is selected in strict
accordance with the following principles: 1) remove
the enterprises that need special treatment due to
abnormal financial data, mainly including St
enterprises. 2) Eliminate the enterprises with missing
data in a certain year. 3) Exclude the enterprises
whose overseas sales revenue accounting for less than
10% of the total sales, that is, the internationalization
level is still at a low level. After selecting, 525
observations of 105 electronic manufacturing
enterprises were obtained. The sample data are
mainly from CSMAR database. Stata12.0 software
was used for data processing.
2.2 Research Hypothesis
According to the theory of first-mover advantage and
the theory of post inferior position proposed by
economist Watson, the first country can accumulate
intangible wealth such as corporate reputation, brand,
culture, and excellent system because of its earlier
occupation of the market, and its economic activities
are also more easily supported by local governments
and have environmental advantages. The resources
also have obvious advantages because they enter the
market first, so the market left to the later entrants is
not large. At this time, there are many barriers to
enterprises in the developing countries when they
enter the international market, such as the lack of
advanced enterprise system and technology, so the
enterprises in the latter developing countries have a
great disadvantage in the early stage of
internationalization because of their high costs
According to the theory of international production
compromise, enterprises must have the advantages of
ownership and internalization in their export
activities. The ownership advantage requires
enterprises to have more advantages in technology or
scale than host enterprises. Internal advantages
require enterprises to have the ability to reduce risks
and obtain information locally. Only after the two
points can be fully met can enterprises choose to
export internationally. According to the research of
many domestic scholars, most of the enterprises in
China are still in the early stage of inter-
nationalization, facing the burden of opening up the
market with high cost. At this time, the investment of
enterprises is generally greater than the profits.
To sum up, this paper predicts that there are many
difficulties in the internationalization of domestic
enterprises at this stage, so the growth of
internationalization tends to cause negative returns to
enterprises in the initial stage. At the same time, it is