What surprised me was that there seemed to be a very strong cultural bias in what structure was recommended by the students. The foreigners (mostly Americans and Europeans) came in with a mix of recommendations, but with a decided edge towards a WFOE/FICE; I don’t think any of them chose a JV. The Chinese students overwhelmingly recommended a JV structure. I wish I could poll them on their recommendations, since the pressure and time limits of the exam itself meant that quite a few of them did not really set forth their arguments as clearly as I would have liked. I therefore can’t really make any guesses on what the underlying issue was here.

There was no "right answer" I suppose, so I cannot say if one option was preferred (by me) over the other. Much more interesting to wonder why the bias was there. Does this say something about a Chinese preference for cooperative ventures in general? Do Westerners value complete control over their subsidiaries above a lot of other factors?

I definitely need to keep track of this stuff if/when I teach the next time.