Extending La Porta, Lopez-de-Silanes, Shleifer, and Vishny (1999), we examine the effect of local government quality on firm performance, since regional and firm research provides a more fine-grained analysis especially in countries where local administration is an integral part of the bureaucratic apparatus. Using a dataset of 7,873 Chinese listed firm-years for 1994–2006, we find a positive relationship between the quality of provincial government and firm performance, controlling for location and firm-specific governance variables. Among various government quality variables, we find that having a special economic zone depicting low taxes and bureaucratic efficiency is the best predictor of firm performance, followed by the degree of marketization, efficient property registration, and environmental protection. Most intriguingly, political freedom has a significant impact on firm performance and productivity, even in a regime where democracy is not practiced. This has never been documented before at a microeconomic level and barely so at a macro level, vindicating Hayek's (1944) theory.

This study investigates the China-located subsidiaries of foreign-owned multinational corporations (MNCs) for patterns of intra-firm and interorganizational technological knowledge accumulation. We analyze US patents attributed to those subsidiaries between 1996 and 2005 and argue that MNCs have recently tended toward open network structures, enabling subsidiaries in emerging markets to develop technological capabilities by searching for diversified inter-organizational knowledge sources beyond geographically local contexts to compensate for local limitations and deficiencies. Findings show that subsidiaries in China have gradually developed their technological capabilities through non-localized searches beyond their organizational, technological, and geographical boundaries. The study contributes to the literature on MNC organizational restructuring, subsidiary evolution, and subsidiary-level non-localized knowledge searches. The findings also have important implications for knowledge spillovers, MNC knowledge management, and government policies.

This study provides new insight into guanxi practice and quality differences between business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-government (B2G) ties in China. The results, based on data obtained through structured interviews with 108 Chinese managers across eight cities in China, reveal stark differences between the practices used in developing B2B ties and those used in developing B2G ties. More specifically, these two tie types differ in a variety of guanxi initiation, building, and utilization practices. This study also builds upon the process model of guanxi development by highlighting the dissimilar role of gift giving practices in B2B and B2G ties. Furthermore, this study measures guanxi quality as a separate concept from guanxi process and demonstrates that guanxi quality is a multidimensional concept that is composed of affective attachment and felt obligation, both of which vary across B2B and B2G ties. Implications of these results for theory development and managerial practice in China are also discussed.

Knowledge has always been a strategic resource for firms; however, there is a lack of research regarding how a firm's knowledge management (KM) contributes to its capability catching-up and adaptation in emerging economies. This article focuses on the knowledge capability building of Chinese private firms that were set up in the 1990s and pays particular attention to how firms with limited resources and knowledge went on to achieve remarkable success. This paper presents its analysis through a multi-level co-evolutionary lens and a case study on the Li-Ning Company. The case study depicts the macro coevolution between the changing business environment and the firm's strategic choices, as well as the micro coevolution of the organizational strategy and the KM orientations, processes, and infrastructures within the firm. The research sheds light on the dynamic capability building trajectory for the firms in emerging economies.

Chinese bureaucracy, with its long history and distinctive characteristics, has provided the organizational basis of governance and played a pivotal role in the economic takeoff in recent decades. Chinese bureaucracy also shows intriguing dualism between entrepreneurial activism and bureaucratic inertia, between formal rules and informal institutions, and between high responsiveness and noticeable loose coupling. In this study, I explore these distinctive features of Chinese bureaucracy through three lenses: Weber's comparative-historical approach helps locate Chinese bureaucracy in a distinct mode of domination; the Confucian lens identifies the prevalence of informal institutions that underlie bureaucratic behaviors; and the Marchian lens sheds light on the organized anarchy and set of mechanisms that shape the key characteristics of Chinese bureaucracy.

Drawing from self-concept and implicit leadership theories, we propose a multilevel model to examine whether, why, and when self-sacrificial leadership motivates followers’ affiliative and challenging citizenship behaviors in China. Data from 329 full-time employees in 83 work groups provide support for the hypothesized model. Specifically, we demonstrated that self-sacrificial leadership was positively related to followers’ relational self-concept constructs of leader identification and leader-based self-esteem, which had differential, downstream implications for followers’ two types of citizenship behavior. Whereas leader identification was found to mediate the positive relationship between self-sacrificial leadership and affiliative citizenship behavior only, leader-based self-esteem mediated the positive relationships of self-sacrificial leadership with both affiliative and challenging citizenship behaviors. We further demonstrated individual power distance orientation as a significant cultural contingency in the above mediation relationships, which were found to exist among followers with low rather than high power distance orientations. We conclude by discussing the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.

Publicly traded Chinese firms recently reformed their ownership structuresby converting non-tradable shares, which constituted two-thirds of sharesoutstanding and were held largely by the state, into shares that could tradeon domestic exchanges. To facilitate this reform, tradable shareholders werecompensated with stock grants from non-tradable shareholders. Our analysisfocuses on the level of compensation, the compensation ratio, the ratio of new tradable shares granted to tradableshares outstanding before the reform. Contrary to the predictions ofasset-pricing models, most firms set the compensation ratio around 0.3. Weexplain this surprising convergence using institutional theory. In doing so,we analyze the power and interests of all relevant actors – not just owners,but also state regulators, executives, and other agents — and draw oninsights from resource-dependence and agency theories. We find strongevidence of coercive and mimetic isomorphism, but no evidence of normativeisomorphism. Because our dependent variable is continuous (a ratio), we areable to show that the mimetic effects we observe cannot be attributed tocoercion or norms. Thus, we not only explain an empirical puzzle, we alsoadvance institutional analysis of isomorphism by clearly distinguishingthree isomorphic forces that have been conflated in much previousresearch.

This essay discusses the sundry ethical considerations confronting editors and reviewers. To begin, journal hierarchy and manuscript lifecycles are reviewed. From there, ethical issues faced by individuals in various editorial roles, who interact with various parties, are discussed. Issues include making fair desk rejections, assigning reviewers ethically, refraining from the promotion of HARKing (hypothesizing after results are known), promoting a holistic view of validity, balancing scientific progress with journal success, providing developmental and actionable feedback, disclosing expertise parameters, and upholding the spirit of double-blind review.

Chinese new ventures have two principal approaches to resource integration: the stabilizing approach, which makes minor changes to a firm's current resource bundles, or the pioneering approach, which creates new capabilities. Two characteristics of Chinese entrepreneurial environment are distinct: environmental dynamism (uncertain markets, unstable institutions and the rapid technology upgrading) and munificence (the degree of competitive intensity and resource abundance). This study suggests that environmental dynamism and environmental munificence moderate the relationships between resource integration approaches and competitive advantage. Results based on a study of 410 Chinese new ventures show that both stabilizing and pioneering approaches to resource integration positively influence new ventures’ competitive advantage under the condition of low environmental dynamism and either high or low environmental munificence. However, neither stabilizing nor pioneering approaches have a significant effect on new ventures’ competitive advantage under the condition of low environmental munificence and high environmental dynamism. Only the pioneering approach has a positive effect on new ventures’ competitive advantage under the condition of high environmental munificence and high environmental dynamism.

In this article, we extend Amabile's componential theory of creativity to account for cross-cultural creativity by conceptualizing cultural learning as a crucial component in the creativity relevant process. We hypothesize a significant positive relationship between cultural learning and expatriates’ cross-cultural job creativity, and that this relationship will be enhanced by domain learning and the cultural distance between the host and home countries. Moreover, we propose that expatriates with higher metacognitive and motivational cultural intelligence will engage in greater cultural learning, which in turn will be related to job creativity. Data from 219 expatriate-supervisor dyads of 36 Chinese multinational companies reveal that metacognitive CQ and motivational CQ are indeed positive antecedents to cultural learning, which in turn positively relates to cross-cultural job creativity, especially for high domain learning expatriates who work in a foreign culture not vastly different from home. Our findings make significant contributions to the existing literature on creativity and provide nuanced understanding of the relationship between cultural intelligence, cultural learning and cross-cultural job creativity. Our findings also have important implications for expatriate management.

This study examines the role of the strength of the Intellectual Property (IP) institutions of 23 European countries in attracting Chinese Outward Foreign Direct Investment (OFDI) during the time period 2003–2015. Following a dynamic panel data analysis methodology, we find that the strength of IP institutions has a positive effect in attracting higher levels of OFDI from China. This is an important finding for the OFDI literature from emerging markets, since previous studies have researched this relationship from the OFDI perspective of developed countries. However, we also find a weak indication of a potential U-shaped relationship between the strength of IP institutions and Chinese OFDI. To better understand this relationship, we interact a European country's membership in the Former Eastern Bloc (FEB) with the strength of IP institutions and find a negative moderating effect. We therefore find that when investing in FEB countries, Chinese firms are attracted to weaker levels of IP institutional strength. The results of this study have important implications for future studies on the determinants of OFDI from emerging markets, as well as for European and Chinese businesses and policy-makers concerning the importance of IP institutional strength.

On the basis of a rich panel data set of large- and medium-sized Chinese manufacturing enterprises, we observe that different types of firms (i.e., state-owned enterprises [SOEs], foreign-funded ownership [FFO] of firms, Hong Kong-Macau-Taiwanese [HMT] companies and privately-owned firms) exploit different stages of the innovation – productivity chain depending on the extent of market concentration. By applying a modified CDM model, this study reveals that SOEs tend to be more active in making innovative decisions and pursuing innovative investments but are less efficient in terms of innovation output and labour productivity, whereas FFO firms have relatively high labour productivity but are less active in the first three stages of the innovation – productivity chain. Market competition favours SOEs in the production of additional innovation products. Foreign firms are efficient in labour productivity if they are operating in a concentrated market. By using the metaphor of DNA, this study explains the heterogeneity among these different forms of ownership and generates several managerial implications.

This article considers whether social organizations (SOs) in China have acquired more autonomy over time under the socialist market economy. To discern whether SOs are changing under the corporatist system, we use quantitative data analyses of a 2001 to 2004 survey of SOs in China. We find that the later the SOs were founded, the more autonomy they have and die more oriented they are to representing their constituents' interests. The data also verify that the later SOs were formed, the greater their desire for freedom from the party-state. Furthermore, SOs that are more autonomous tend to be more critical of the SO management system, but this holds only for SOs founded before 2000. After 2001, no correlation occurs between autonomy and the expressed desire for more freedom.

This study offers empirical evidence about how the structure of government and private ownership affected productivity in Chinese firms. It uses the microdata of China's last decennial industrial census, covering all of the 23,000 large and medium-sized industrial firms operating in China during 1995. The results show that government decentralization – ‘federalism’ – played an important role in improving the performance of not just collective firms, but also state-owned and mixed public/private ownership firms. This result is strongly confirmatory of much of the recent theoretical work on transition economies that posits a key role for government in the efficient operation of markets.

Company brands signify a message to consumers about the quality and value of a product. Countries can also be branded. However, unlike the brands of individual firms, country brands are collective goods. The nature of country brands creates the possibility of free riding, where individual firms benefit – in terms of price or access – from the promise made by a country brand but deliver at a level lower than what is promised by the brand. Such free riding threatens the stability of what the country brand represents unless legal, governmental, or other institutions engage in activities to reduce these adverse effects. In this paper, we investigate the Chinese brand – once standing for average quality at a low price – in the light of recent recalls. We examine how country brands emerge and the incentives that firms operating in a country have to either support or not support a country brand. We also explore the implications of diese incentives for the role of various institutions, including the government, in developing, maintaining and changing a country brand and in developing and enforcing the policies, such as protection of intellectual property, necessary to support firms' efforts toward reinforcing a trusted country brand.

With this perspective paper, we seek to help open up an additional and, we believe, especially promising avenue for indigenous management research. We explore the potential for progress through the investigation of executive rationale, an institutional logic guiding managerial action and enabling strategies, structures, and formal integration mechanisms. Drawing on interviews with an elite group of executives including some of the world's most powerful managers, we illustrate variance in executive rationale across five major economies – Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, and the United States – and suggest that action and structures in these economies are broadly aligned with the respective expressions of executive rationale. We consequently hold that indigenous management research may benefit from a focus on executive rationale in particular, and we propose a concrete research agenda.

This article analyzes the effects of firms’ founding ownership in shaping their corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance in China. Drawing on a nationwide survey of 1,037 representative manufacturing firms in 12 cities, we specify the imprinting effects of firms’ founding ownership on labor and environmental protections, two important CSR practices. Our results show that state-owned enterprises (SOEs) founded during the state socialist period, regardless of their restructuring experience in the market reform era, continued to implement pro-labor practices. Moreover, even the SOEs founded in the market reform era provided better labor protection than non-SOEs founded during the same time. In contrast, the founding imprints of environmentalism in the reform era for non-SOEs, especially the de novo private firms, explain why they spent more than SOEs in environmental protection. We extend the organizational imprinting theory by highlighting the importance of firms’ founding ownership imprints and in shaping their current CSR performance.

We examine how evolving FDI legitimacy in China influences two strategic choices (entry mode and expatriate staffing) of Japanese subsidiaries there over the period 1993–2000, based on data aggregated from Toyo Keizai and the National Bureau of Statistics of China (various years). As FDI legitimacy improves over time, we find that smaller subsidiaries tend to choose the wholly owned subsidiary mode and deploy a higher percentage of expatriates, whereas larger subsidiaries tend to choose the joint venture mode and use a lower percentage of expatriates; and that Japanese subsidiaries are more likely to have a local manager, and this tendency may be stronger for larger subsidiaries. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed from a density dependence theory perspective.