Dr. Jean-Marc F. Blanchard, Founding Executive Director of the Mr. & Mrs. S.H. Wong Center for the Study of Multinational Corporations, delivers keynote speech at 18th Annual China Goes Global Conference

Dr. Jean-Marc F. Blanchard, Founding Executive Director of the Mr. & Mrs. S.H. Wong Center for the Study of Multinational Corporations (Wong MNC Center), served as a keynote speaker at the 18th Annual China Goes Global Conference held at EM-Lyon Business School (Paris, France). At this gathering, attracting researchers and practitioners from around the world, Dr. Blanchard gave a speech entitled “Learning the Ropes about Chinese Overseas Ports,” using the Wong MNC Center research projects on overseas ports as a platform to shed light on China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), outward foreign direct investment (FDI), and overseas infrastructure as well as research on these topics. Dr. Blanchard began by laying out some problems involved in analyzing the BRI, outward FDI (OFDI), and overseas infrastructure and the associated effects. He advocated for a qualitative case study methodological approach and used Wong MNC Center publications on Chinese overseas ports in Europe and the Americas and Chinese overseas ports in Southeast and South Asia to highlight what could be gained from such an approach in terms of greater empirical knowledge and richer conceptual understanding. Following this, he discussed the implications of these publications for businesspeople and policymakers as well as for researchers.