Sample characteristics.

In the process of transnational investment management, the choice of entry mode is one of the key decisions, and creative assets will affect the choice of overseas market entry mode. However, few studies have analyzed how creative assets affect firms’ overseas market entry patterns. This paper takes 480 overseas investment data of 134 Chinese listed enterprises from 2012 to 2019 as research samples and uses the Logistic model to study the influence of creative assets owned by enterprises on their choice of the joint venture and wholly owned modes. At the same time, we examine the formal and informal institutional distance between home and host countries, and the moderating effect of firms’ own experience in the process of model selection. In addition, using the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) from the perspective of configuration to explore the different paths of overseas market entry mode. The research results indicate that marketing intensity and technical intensity of enterprises have a positive and significant impact on overseas investment patterns, that is, higher marketing intensity or technical intensity will prompt enterprises to preferentially choose wholly-owned mode. Formal institutional distance and experience can moderate the relationship between creativity and investment mode to some extent, while informal institutional distance has no significant moderating effect on creative assets and investment mode. Three configurations can induce firms to choose the wholly-owned mode, and only one configuration can induce firms to choose the joint venture mode. This study lays a theoretical foundation for enterprises to enter the overseas market.