Assessing the Driving Forces Influencing World City Formation in Shanghai Based upon PLS-SEM Approach

In the context of transnational economy, world cities have been deemed as one of the most prominent articulations pertaining into unprecedented economic globalization. Since the proliferation of foreign direct investment and economic structure restructuring, Chinese cities are characterised by the conspicuous vanguards positions embedded in world city network. In this article, the purpose is aiming to examine the major driving forces influencing world city formation in China. In practice, we attempt to choose the pre-eminent world city -Shanghai in China for elaborate case analysis. In line with the conceptual framework in terms of relationship between driving forces and world city formation in Shanghai, a total of 200 questionnaires are distributed online in order to conduct multivariate statistical analysis. Based upon world city theory, partial least squares- structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) using SmartPLS 3 is deployed to rigorously analyse collected data so that we can assess the subsequent measurement and structural model. Not surprisingly, this multivariable research demonstrates that the majority of selected factors significantly affect world city formation in Shanghai. According to these empirical findings, this study makes dramatic theoretical and practical contributions for the local municipal government from a new insight with reference to world city strategy in Shanghai.