Recent Chinese growth and development has had a tremendous impact on the world economy, especially in terms of the absorption of a significant amount of global foreign direct investment (FDI). Most of this FDI has taken the form of joint ventures between local and foreign firms. Some researchers typically see this as a race by local firms to learn from and eventually outperform foreign firms. The aim of this paper is to explore the evolving experiences, concerning acquired knowledge, resourcing, and control activities, of managers in Sino-Swedish joint ventures. For this purpose, a theoretical framework based on Buckley, P. J., Glaister, K. W., and Husa, R. [(2002). International Joint Ventures: Partnering skills and cross-cultural issues. Long Range Planning, 35, 113-134] and Child, J., and Yan, Y. [(2003). Predicting the performance of International Joint Ventures: An investigation in China. Journal of Management Studies, 40(2)] is developed. Within this framework - The Actor Oriented Approach-four propositions emerge. These are then tested against nine Swedish cases in China. The cases are based on data from a study of Swedish expatriate CEOs. Based on the findings a five stage, sequential approach to foreign firm entry and evolution into foreign markets is constructed. The paper concludes with a discussion of the model's more general applicability and suggestions for further research.