The world is now, as pointed out by President Xi Jinping, witnessing “profound and unprecedented changes of a century.” A new international landscape is evolving as politics, economies, societies and cultures are all entering into a new era. The tidal force of globalization is, even with hiccups caused by the “deglobalization” in some regions, still connecting countries closely together reflected by more specific labor division and closer trade relations. This presents a great opportunity for China to construct its new development paradigm with a “Dual Circulation”, and also for Chinese enterprise to march faster and more steadily towards the overseas markets with stronger international competitiveness.
Dedicated by the International Business School of Zhejiang University (ZIBS) and the Cambridge Centre for Chinese Management (CCCM) in 2020, the “Degree of Internationalization Index for Chinese Firms (DOI) Report” was compiled for the critical goal of providing overall strategies and summarizing some of the best practices for Chinese companies to better compete in the international market and expand globally. This study, conducted by prestigious scholars from both Zhejiang University and University of Cambridge, has gathered business management elites from both academia and industry to form a strong research team composed of postgraduate researchers from Zhejiang university, University of Cambridge and several other top-notch universities. The project is aiming at establishing an index system (DOI) to quantify the internationalization performance of Chinese companies, which will facilitate the systematic research on the internationalization process of hundreds of Chinese companies, which can be leveraged by other companies to upgrade their overseas strategies and navigate in the international market.
The theme of this report is “Global Footprints Taking Root”, which is derived from a famous quotation from “Liu Zi, On Study”. “Taking Root” refers to the humble beginning of the internationalization of Chinese companies, during which some minor successes had been achieved; the “Global Footprints” refers to the ultimate goal of such efforts on internationalization, as we believe Chinese companies will inevitably become the major players in the international market with core competence. Along with the launch of our report, we would “take root” by constantly polishing our work and endeavoring to promote the rigorosity and influence of DOI.