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The Road More Popular versus the Road Less Travelled: An ‘Insider's’ Perspective of Advancing Chinese Management Research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2015

Bor-Shiuan Cheng ,
An-Chih Wang  and
Min-Ping Huang
Bor-Shiuan Cheng
Affiliation:
National Taiwan University, Taiwan
An-Chih Wang
Affiliation:
National Taiwan University, Taiwan
Min-Ping Huang
Affiliation:
Yuan Ze University, Taiwan
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Abstract

To complement Barney and Zhang's as well as Whetten's articles in this issue of Management and Organization Review, we offer ways to develop indigenous management theory to explain unique Chinese management phenomena. We first briefly review the imbalance of developing theories of Chinese management versus developing Chinese theories of management in Chinese research societies. We then describe a five-step research process that uses an indigenous research approach to theory development: discovery of interesting phenomena, field observations, construction of the theoretical framework, empirical examination, and theory refinement. This process may be useful not only in the Chinese context, but also in any other context. We identify several challenges in both Chinese and international academic societies that must be overcome to facilitate learning across the two approaches proposed by Barney and Zhang: the need for high quality journals in the Chinese language, international journals' efforts to ease the imbalance between the two approaches, and collaboration between Chinese and Western management schools.

Keywords

Chinese management researchChinese theory of managementemic approachindigenous research approachpaternalistic leadershiptheory development华人管理研究本土研究取径本位取径理论发展华人本土管理理论家长式领导
Type
Commentaries
Information
Management and Organization Review , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , March 2009 , pp. 91 - 105
Copyright
Copyright © International Association for Chinese Management Research 2009

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