Journal of Northeastern University(Social Science) ›› 2023, Vol. 25 ›› Issue (5): 25-35.DOI: 10.15936/j.cnki.1008-3758.2023.05.004

• Economics and Management • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Impact of FTA on the Network Structure Holes of Cross-border M&A in the Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Industry

GAO Fei, YANG Xinyuan, YANG Yaru   

  1. (School of Business Administration, Northeastern University, Shenyang 110169, China)
  • Published:2023-09-27
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Abstract: Taking the countries participating in cross-border M&A of the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry from 1999 to 2018 as the research samples, a network with countries as nodes and cross-border M&A relations as edges is constructed, and the influence of FTA on the network structure holes of cross-border M&A of high-tech industries is empirically tested by using the two-way fixed effect model. The results show that there is an “inverted U-shaped” relationship between the number of FTA signed by various countries and the number of structure holes in the cross-border M&A network. However, a country's economic development level can strengthen the “inverted U-shaped” relationship between FTA and structure holes. The study enriches the research of antecedent variables of structure holes, and has significant implications for countries to make rational use of FTA to improve the quality and quantity of information and knowledge resources in the practice of cross-border M&A of the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry, and therefore improve the efficiency of cross-border M&A.

Key words: Free Trade Agreement (FTA); cross-border merger and acquisition (M&A); social network; structure hole; pharmaceutical manufacturing industry

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