In this study, we focus on the temporal behaviors – speed and rhythm – of outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) by emerging multinational enterprises (EMNEs) and examine the effect of such behaviors on innovation performance. Using a learning perspective, we argue that OFDI speed has an inverted U-shaped effect on EMNEs’ innovation performance, whereas the relationship between the uneven rhythm of OFDI and innovation performance is negative. The results, based on OFDI panel data of 1,092 Chinese firms, support our predictions that a moderate OFDI speed and a more regular pattern of OFDI expansion provide sources of competitiveness and contribute to firms’ innovation performance.

This article investigates the relative roles of formal property rights institutions versus deregulated markets in entrepreneurial development, based on China's market transition. Empirically, it is not yet known which set of institutions matters more for entrepreneurship, particularly in the long run, despite the existence of well-established theoretical arguments for each. Using provincial-level panel data from China's transition economy, this study has the following findings: On average, both formal protection of property rights and deregulated markets have positive effects on entrepreneurial development; yet, as market transition progresses, the effect of formal protection of property rights increases, while that of deregulated markets decreases. These results are robust to both multiple model specifications and an endogeneity test using an instrumental variable approach. Overall, therefore, while both sets of institutions indeed play positive roles in entrepreneurial development, property rights institutions may be more fundamental in the long run.

Although many organizations encourage employees to voice, employees may be reluctant to voice directly because they are afraid that their supervisors will perceive it as challenging their face (i.e., the positive image or social value of an individual). Alternatively, employees could deliver improvements or express concerns to their supervisors using indirect and implicit approaches, which we refer to as ‘implicit voice delivery’. Applying face theory, we examine the antecedents and outcomes as well as two boundary conditions of implicit voice delivery in organizations with two studies. In Study 1, we define the construct and develop a measure of implicit voice delivery. In Study 2, we test our proposed model with supervisor-subordinate dyadic data from a time-lagged survey. Results demonstrate that concern for other people's face drives employees to express their voices implicitly and that this relationship is stronger when supervisors’ concern for their own face is high rather than low. In addition, implicit voice delivery is associated with supervisors’ favorable response in terms of voice endorsement. Furthermore, the effect on voice endorsement is stronger when the supervisor is more able to infer meaning from implicit messages. Theoretical contribution and managerial implications are discussed.

Extant spillover literature explains domestic firms' productivity change mainly by the presence and attributes of foreign direct investment. In contrary, this paper, by adopting a routine-based model of absorptive capacity, intends to explore how domestic firms absorb spillovers over time. Based on a qualitative study of a domestic firm in China's silicone adhesive industry, the findings show that unbounded by geographical constraints, domestic firms enact their external absorptive capacity routines to actively search for spillovers from multinational enterprises (MNEs) at both national and international levels. Moreover, rather than searching for what is available, domestic firms are selective for spillovers that are coherent with their business strategies. The most unexpected finding is that domestic firms diligently acquire spillovers from MNEs and from local competitors in combination. Spillovers acquired from local competitors are used to increase the inferential accuracy of spillovers acquired from MNEs about strategic successes. Further, instead of absorbing spillovers from MNEs which pose moderate technology gaps, domestic firms target at MNEs which exhibit wider technology gaps, and undertake organizational learning and develop complementary assets to enhance their internal absorptive capacity routines. Socially enabling mechanisms are found to facilitate domestic firms' absorption of spillovers by employee turnover.

Although research in cultural psychology has established that virtually all human behaviors and cognitions are in some ways shaped by culture, culture has been surprisingly absent from the emerging literature on the psychology of technology. In this perspective article, we first review recent findings on machine aversion versus appreciation. We then offer a cross-cultural perspective in understanding how people might react differently to machines. We propose three frameworks – historical, religious, and exposure – to explain how Asians might be more accepting of machines than their Western counterparts. We end the article by discussing three exciting human–machine applications found primarily in Asia and provide future research directions.

Although McCarthy, Dolfsma, and Weitzel (2016) cover much ground in their study, in this commentary I focus on alternative explanations for the empirical results indicating that Chinese acquirers outperformed acquirers from other countries – particularly acquirers from the United States. First, based on research I have done with colleagues (e.g., Chen & Young, 2010; Young & McGuinness, 2001) and that of a doctoral student (Tang, 2016), I suggest that comparison of Chinese stock market reactions to merger announcements with stock market reactions to merger announcements from more mature markets, such as the United States, may create some misleading results. The Event Study Method (ESM) used in this study is a measure of investors’ short-term reactions to unanticipated events and it assumes that investors are capable of accurately evaluating such events (MacKinlay, 1997; McWilliams & Siegel, 1997). I suggest that, given the relative newness of Chinese stock markets, Chinese investors may have reacted more positively to merger announcements regardless of the mergers’ prospects for success. Second, similar to Shapiro and Li (2016), I suggest that stages of industry and organizational development better explain the actual motivation and success of Chinese acquirers than does a general theory of culture or corporate governance traditions.

Universities in China have increased their entrepreneurship significantly, yet a good understanding of the specific characteristics of university-based technology transfers remains missing. This study focuses on a special type of university spinoffs in China, University-Run Enterprises (UREs), and examines how URE eminence contributes to a university's technology transfer performance, using panel data covering 195 universities over the five years from 2002 to 2006. The findings reveal that URE eminence not only signifies a university's strong entrepreneurial culture, but also signals commercial values and quality of the university research. It moderates the contribution of university scientists from the supply side and that of sourcing firms from the demand side.

In this commentary we reflect on Shaalan, Eid, and Tourky's (2022) article in which they investigated the Chinese concept and practice of guanxi in the Middle East,1 a region in which wasta represents the common way of informal networking.2 While we encourage and welcome research into informal networks, we have serious concerns about the conceptual and methodological approaches taken by Shaalan et al. (2022) in investigating informal networks in the Middle East and explain herein why we do not believe guanxi should have been used in place of wasta.

This research commentary responds to Jiang and Murmann (2022), by offering further explanations for the miraculous growth of the digital economy in China from both the demand and supply perspectives. To complement their views, we identify several additional important factors, and classify them in three categories in an explanatory model. We believe that factors on the demand side played a primary role, along with innovative and entrepreneurial e-commerce service providers on the supply side. Infrastructures and government policies provided the foundation and a facilitating environment. We conclude that digital transformation of traditional industries will become the next wave of digital economy, stronger than the previous wave of e-commerce. Implications for research and practices are also discussed. In addition, we highlight emerging trends and turbulences. In conclusion, despite short-term turbulences, we expect that the digital economy in China will make big-stride progress in the long term, with strong potential to continue its growth.

Integrating the strategic choice and the institutional perspectives, we provide a contextualized analysis of human resource (HR) development investment in Chinese private firms. Based on a nation-wide survey of domestic private firms, we found that strategic choice variables (i.e., private entrepreneurs’ education and governance team completeness) are positively related to HR development investment. Perceived government support for private business strengthened the positive relationships between strategic choice variables and HR development investment. Furthermore, institutional variables (i.e., owners’ political affiliation and firms’ former state ownership) explained additional variance in HR development investment above and beyond strategic choice variables. Perceived government support negatively moderated the relationship between former state ownership and HR development investment. Theoretical and policy implications were discussed at the end.

Built upon the mixed gamble perspective, we used a recent survey on Chinese family firms (FFs) and found that increased family influence lowers Chinese FF environmental proactiveness, as they show a peculiar tendency to take a financial view rather than a socioemotional wealth view. Moreover, we found that increased resource endowment attenuates this tendency, whereas provincial marketization strengthens it. However, entrepreneur reputation does not have a significant moderating effect. Overall, the study enriches an understanding of environmental proactiveness for FFs, organizational heterogeneity, and institutional differences. It also introduces new elements into the mixed gamble framework.

Within the last two decades, the international expansion of Latin American companies has undergone remarkable growth. This phenomenon has attracted scholarly attention, however, most of the available research is focused on companies that have already engaged in foreign direct investment (FDI), meanwhile, Latin American firms in pre-FDI stages remain mostly understudied. This article uses an explanatory case study design to analyze the corporate reputation and decision-making process related to international expansion of a set of ten Latin American companies. Both archival and primary data were used in the individual and cross-case analyses stages for 22 months. Our study identifies and establishes analytical generalizations when examining and contrasting the findings with the previously revised theoretical frameworks. More specifically, we identified that these companies exhibit similarities with the behavior of Jaguars, the Latin American wild feline; especially because of (i) their preference to remain in their regional market to exploit current capabilities and advantages, and eventually enter developed markets to upgrade capabilities and surpass strong competitors at home; (ii) their strategies to disguise their country of origin and lack of experience when operating internationally; and (iii) their solitary behavior and reluctance to engage in partnerships and/or strategic alliances unless they have a specific interest in building legitimacy and enhancing reputation.

This study provides new insights into the role of subsidiary managers in the practice of global business models of multinational enterprises in transforming economies. Drawing on the global business model literature and through semi-structured interviews with a leading Norwegian maritime multinational enterprise in China, we have developed and critically explored a theoretical framework for uncovering how subsidiary managers understand and manage the tensions between the headquarters based in a western country and the subsidiaries based in a transforming economy. More specifically, when implementing the global business model in the transforming economy, subsidiary managers need to undertake effective management of structural, behavioural, and cultural tensions along with the global integration-local responsiveness dilemma. Subsidiary managers can contribute to solving structural tensions between the headquarters and subsidiary by undertaking effective market sensing and knowledge transfer activities to integrate the transforming economies into the MNE's global production networks. Meanwhile, they need to make effective relationship management to solve behavioural and cultural tensions.

Drawing from conceptualizations of organizational learning and institutional complexity, we advance the understanding of how the coexistence of multiple institutional logics in a community influences firms’ learning. Viewing communities where firms and local governments coexist as clusters, our analysis of 354 firms in 39 township clusters in China shows that government logic negatively moderates the positive effect of community logic on organizational learning; however, social connections between the community and local governments mitigate this negative effect. Modeling the relationship between the two logics in this manner extends prior conceptualizations of interfirm learning as a process of isomorphic diffusion of social norms and advances understanding of the role of institutions in organizational learning. This study also offers new insights for theoretical conversations on the compatibility and incompatibility of multiple institutional logics by demonstrating when logic multiplicity leads to conflicts and when it maintains harmony.

This paper provides a philosophical repositioning of human resource management (HRM) to further sustainable human resources development (HRD). We use a conceptual process, based on the work of French philosopher and Sinologist François Jullien. Despite its growing and diversified academic production, HRM research has become increasingly isolated from practice, from alternative views of human life, and from nature. This is at least partly due to its failure to self-question its Western centric roots. This paper describes some key conceptual innovations that deal with efficacy and ‘vital nourishment’ which are of particular interest for sustainable HRD. The question of how to feed life (or nourish it) in the workplace is illustrated by a gardening metaphor for managing human potential. In contrast to cross-cultural studies, this metaphor emerges from a dialogue between Western and Eastern philosophies, and offers alternative approaches to HRD based on some core insights from the Chinese tradition.

Despite the growing interest in social businesses, knowledge about and theorization of how these businesses change social and institutional conditions in emerging economies is scarce. This research investigates how an innovative social business model acts on institutional voids and creates social value for deprived communities. Building on insights from the literature and a longitudinal case study of a local, grassroots social business venture operating in Brazilian slums and shantytowns (favelas), we uncover and theorize eight mechanisms by which an innovative social business model brings about institutional change and creates social value. These mechanisms are: orchestrating local business networks, developing local business networks, upgrading and building cognitive capacity, legitimizing, assigning multiple roles, empowering, building a positive territorial identity (territorial de-stigmatization), and boundary spanning. Our findings have important implications for social entrepreneurs and organizations supporting social business ventures in transforming economies.

This study examines how Chinese firms capture value from their innovations. We propose that relationship-building through business entertainment may be helpful. In particular, wining and dining key stakeholders, including clients, suppliers, distributors, and government officials, can help firms gain access to complementary resources necessary for commercializing their innovations, facilitating capturing value from innovations. However, business entertainment is less effective in regions with relatively developed market-supporting institutions, including factor markets and legal institutions. The analysis results of archival data and data from a World Bank survey of Chinese firms support all the above arguments.

The extensive narrative of growth and development of the information and communication technologies (ICTs) in China by Jiang and Murmann (2022) and the discussion of Chinese strengths and weaknesses portray the remarkable progress that China has made, especially in technology relative to advances in the basic sciences. In our response, we situate their contribution in the larger context of Chinese economic growth and the challenges it faces in transforming these accomplishments into an embedded national capability to become a leading innovation economy and thereby deliver prosperity to its enormous but aging population. The contexts for the successes and weaknesses in ICT that Jiang and Murmann (2022) describe so admirably are vital for a more comprehensive understanding of their place in the overall development of China.