Mengyao Chen

Global cities and the locational strategies of Transnational Corporations, specifically their Host-country Headquarters:

• Global cities
• Transnational Corporations
• State-owned Enterprises
• Location strategies
• M&As
• Government power
• Headquarters
• FDI regulations
• Corporate strategies

Student representative of the Urban research group.

My research interest was first sparked by reading the large amount of literature on global cities which were done by the Globalisation and World Cities research group (GaWC) in Geography Department at Loughborough University, when I was studying my Masters. I feel it is fascinating that a small number of global cities have significant influences on the world economy. In the meantime, as the main players in the world economy and a vital index for the GaWC to measure the hierarchy of global cities, transnational corporations have attracted my attention. My research interest then shifted to corporate behavior, corporate strategies, divisional/ corporate headquarters and cross-border expansion of transnational corporations.

I did my bachelor degree in International Economy & Trade in Nanjing China from 2007 to 2011 and graduated with a first class honour. During that period, I successfully organised and led two research projects to respectively study the significance of cooperations between corporations and universities and the sustainable economy in Yixing China. Both research reports were awarded the "Outstanding Research Report" of university.

In September 2011, I did my Masters in International Financial & Political Relations in Geography Department at Loughborough University. Then I joined Geography Department at King's College to study PhD in 2013. My PhD research focuses on the locational patterns of foreign transnational corporations' headquarters in mainland China, especifically Beijing and Shanghai. It studies the ways in which M&As, market-related, government-related and FDI locational factors affect foreign transnationals' locational decisions in China and teases out a set of systemic location patterns for foreign corporations. My research aims to fill up the gaps existing in current literature and also gives strategic guidances for transnationals wanting to make locational choices in host countries, particularly in China. In December 2014, I was awarded the Partnership Award by King's College London to visit one of its partnership universities -- Renmin University China to do a research project on companies' locational strategies in Beijing.

Currently, I have passed my Viva and expected to graduate at the end of 2017.