We investigate the following important questions in international business: How do MNEs choose ownership strategies when facing strong uncertainty in foreign market entries? How are the choices affected by industry contingencies? Following the key tenets of real options theory, we propose that,...

Using hand-collected data from China’s split share structure reform (SSSR) programme, we theorise and show that the certification of foreign institutional investors mitigates domestic minority shareholders’ mistrust of controlling shareholders’ reform plans and facilitates the SSSR....