Abstract: By the perspective of host country preference for green-field investment, this research investigates the effect of host country investment preference on the OFDI investors’ entry mode choices based on evolutionary game theory. With an evolutionary game model of capital-intensive enterprises and labor-intensive enterprises’ OFDI entry strategy selection which is built on Hotelling model, the paper analyzes the change mechanism of two types of enterprises’ OFDI mode strategies under the host country investment preference. The research results are as follows: In the process of enterprises’ outward foreign direct investment, compared to overseas mergers & acquisitions, if the host country has a strong investment preference for green-field investment (the newly start-ups), and the policy support provided (subsidies, investment facilitation, etc.) is larger, this market will reach an evolutionary equilibrium (EE) that capital-intensive enterprises and labor-intensive enterprises all enter overseas markets through green-field investment. On the contrary, if the preferential policy support or investment facilitation that foreign investors entered through green-field investment can obtain is smaller, there do not appear a steady state in the market that all kinds of or part of the enterprises all choose one of the two entry strategies of OFDI, the OFDI entry strategy of enterprises and its influencing factors in different periods are varied, the host country investment preference has no significant promotional effect on the green-field new investment of OFDI. In addition, a practical example of outward foreign direct investment is given for the research results and made some relevant discussions in this paper.

Key words: the entry mode of outward foreign direct investment, host country investment preference, Hotelling model, evolutionary equilibrium