{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,11]],"date-time":"2025-10-11T02:55:47Z","timestamp":1760151347647,"version":"build-2065373602"},"reference-count":64,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"2","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2022,3,8]],"date-time":"2022-03-08T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1646697600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100001809","name":"National Natural Science Foundation of China","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["42001138"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["42001138"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100001809","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Systems"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Corporate investment strategies and decision-making processes are crucial for understanding the operation and evolution of socioeconomic systems. Mergers and acquisitions (M&amp;As) have been the main mode of corporate investment, growth, and upgrading, deeply affecting corporate reorganization, regional industrial restructuring, and economic globalization. By building a database including 5543 M&amp;A partnerings and 1.89 million M&amp;A non-partnerings, this study aims to uncover the systematic dynamics of M&amp;A partnering in regional China during different phases since the mid-1990s, with particular attention given to the effects of firm heterogeneities and multi-dimensional proximities. Although geographical, cognitive, organizational, and institutional proximity dimensions are significantly influential for M&amp;A partnering, we find that the effects of multi-dimensional proximities differ across M&amp;A types and involving firms. Specifically, organizational proximity matters more for large- and medium-sized acquirers, while institutional proximity plays a more vital role in the acquisition target selection of private-owned and small-sized acquirers. Cognitive proximity measured by industrial and technical relatedness is more crucial for horizontal, vertical, and conglomerate M&amp;As that are tightly associated with the corporate product, technical, and functional upgrading. The results indicate that the benefits of cognitive proximity may offset the risks and costs resulting from long-distance M&amp;As, demonstrating the interactive dynamics between proximity dimensions. Our findings suggest that firm heterogeneities, proximity dynamics, and contextual factors should be focused on when explaining the investment decision-making processes of individual corporations in emerging and transitional economies such as China.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/systems10020032","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2022,3,9]],"date-time":"2022-03-09T01:50:53Z","timestamp":1646790653000},"page":"32","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":2,"title":["Firm Heterogeneities, Multi-Dimensional Proximities, and Systematic Dynamics of M&amp;A Partnering: Evidences from Transitional China"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"10","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-7290-4338","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Jiawei","family":"Wu","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Key Laboratory of Watershed Geographic Sciences, Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2022,3,8]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","first-page":"345","article-title":"Firms in territories: A relational perspective","volume":"77","author":"Dicken","year":"2001","journal-title":"Econ. 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