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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Mar. Sci.
Sec. Marine Affairs and Policy
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmars.2025.1568042
This article is part of the Research Topic Challenges and Solutions in Forecasting and Decision-Making in Marine Economy and Management, Volume II View all 4 articles
How do Chinese Marine Firms Embed in Global Value Chains? Peer effects Perspective
Provisionally accepted
WeiJian Tian 
YingQin Zhao *- Liaoning University, Shenyang, China
This study investigates how Chinese marine firms are motivated to embed in the global value chains from the perspective of peer effects. The motivation mechanism is examined and tested from three perspectives: learning motivation, competitive motivation and information motivation. The marine companies that were listed between 2008 and 2016 on the Shanghai and Shenzhen A-shares serve as our samples. A number of robustness tests support the study's conclusion that Chinese marine companies' embed in the global value chains has industry peer effects. According to the mechanism analysis, the leader firms in marine enterprises embed in the GVCs peer effects for "competitive motivation" and "information motivation", while the following companies do the same for "learning motivation" and "information motivation." According to heterogeneity analysis, peer effects are particularly prominent in places with state-owned marine firms, high proportion of FDI and high degree of marketization. The driving forces behind marine firms' embed in global value chains are explored in this study, which also offers managers of marine enterprises decision-making resources.
Keywords: Marine economy, Global value chains, Peer effects, Imitation behavior, Mechanism analysis
Received: 28 Jan 2025; Accepted: 03 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Tian and Zhao. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
YingQin Zhao, Liaoning University, Shenyang, China
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