FEATURE ARTICLE Chinese outward foreign direct investment: The reasons why some Chinese firms fail in Norway Yuxia Wang | Ilan Alon Recent years have seen a dramatic rise in Chinese multinationals investing in various projects around the world. While there have been numerous studies of Chinese outward foreign direct investment (FDI), there have been far fewer that examine the factors that relate to their success or fail- ure from the perspective of the Chinese investor. Here we present a cross- case analysis of four examples of Chinese investments in Norway that failed to produce a profit. Using semi-structured interviews with Chinese and local managers, government agencies, and data from secondary sources, we identify five factors that contributed to this: (a) legal factors, (b) cultural differences, (c) business strategies, (d) organizational structure, and (e) the selection of people. We believe that these four case studies con- tribute to our knowledge of the reasons why Chinese outward FDI fails, and that it offers guidance to the management of Chinese firms wishing to invest in Europe. 1 | INTRODUCTION Chinese investments in Norway began to grow in 2000 and over the last two decades, both their number and scale have increased. China has become a notable eco- nomic player and a major purchaser of local firms in Norway, ranking between 10th and 15th place in the list of countries with the largest foreign direct invest- ment (FDI) holdings in Norway (Gåsemyr & Sverdrup- Thygeson, 2017). According to statistics from the Chi- nese Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM), as of the end of 2018, the stock of Chinese direct investment in Nor- way was worth USD 1.998 billion (Chinese Ministry of Commerce, 2020). While many Chinese acquisitions have been regarded as successful, most notably Elkem's acquisition by China Chemicals, the failures can provide insights into the mis- takes that some firms make. We defined failure as the firm's inability to turn a profit from its business model. This paper is among the first attempts to identify the key factors in the failure of Chinese companies in Norway, a topic of interest to scholars, Chinese managers, and deci- sion makers. In this paper, we use a multiple case study approach to investigate four Chinese companies in Nor- way that, according to our definition, failed: the SiChuan Road & Bridge (Group) Corporation Ltd.; Beijing Guotong Baoyuan Investment Co. Ltd.; EMPERY; and the China Liangtse group. Our study contributes to the growing literature on the factors that influence the success or failure of Chi- nese Outward Foreign Direct Investment (OFDI) at country-level, including both Mergers and Acquisitions (M&As) and greenfield investments, in industries such as the service industry and the construction industry. In doing so, it fills the research gap of Chinese OFDI in Nordic countries. Our findings indicate that there are five key factors involved in the failure of Chinese com- panies in Norway: legal factors, cultural differences, business strategies, organizational structure, and the selection of people. DOI: 10.1002/joe.22066 GBOE. 2020;40(1):31–43. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/joe © 2020 Wiley Periodicals LLC 31