Technology strategy and sustainability of business: Empirical experiences from Chinese cases

This paper sets out to review the literature of technology strategy, competitive advantage and sustainability of international business, in particular, the contribution that the enactment of technology strategy can make toward the effective implementation of business sustainability in the post-recession. It examines what kind of role technology strategy plays in Chinese business and how business sustainability could be leveraged through the implementation of appropriate technology strategy. This paper attempts to address various crucial issues in the establishment of a proper technology strategy for the sustainability of the business in the global market place based upon case study of five vanguard Chinese companies.

This exploratory study primarily adapts a qualitative multiple-case-study method which attempts to understand how Chinese firms perceive the role of technology strategy in their business, to capture the practical terms and concepts underpinning technology strategy and sustainability, and to allow us to have an analysis of the relationship between technology strategy and sustainability of business. Finally, ten propositions concerning “technology strategy and sustainability of business” are to be developed and verified along the theoretical development of the paper and examination of five cases. The nature of the study results that the paper applies qualitative method with a multiple-case-study approach, including Geely, Haier, TCL, Huawei and Lenovo.

This paper addresses the crucial issues – management of technology as basic function in international business and the close relationship between technology strategy and business sustainability. It showcases the Chinese business paradigm from “imitation to innovation” of how Chinese hi-tech firms built their core competence. This study provides fresh insights for multinational companies in creating competitive advantage through designing an appropriate technology strategy.

Theoretically this research fills the gap of an area of technology management which has been rarely touched. This will have strong implication not only to Chinese companies but also non-Chinese multinational companies.