Since 2012, a large-scale Party branches building campaign intending to regain political influence in the private sector has been sweepingly promoted. Drawing on the Chinese Private Enterprise Survey conducted in 2008, 2012, and 2018, this study investigates private enterprises’ strategies in response to the intensified political pressure by integrating socioemotional wealth theory and neo-institutional theory. It is found that (1) private enterprises with high family ownership tend not to establish Party branches until political pressure is very high; (2) enterprises with high family ownership are more likely to adopt a decoupling strategy of evading the Party's political and social goals; and (3) the owners’ perceptions of a better market and legal environment weaken the negative effect of family ownership on the establishment of Party branches. These results reveal the key logic of preserving the socioemotional wealth and ‘embedded agency’ of Chinese private enterprises when they confront institutional legitimacy mandates. This study also sheds new light on the causes of the decoupling phenomenon and the dynamic interactions between institutional environment and organizational behaviors.

We use community detection analysis to investigate the structure of Bengaluru's ICT cluster's inter-organizational network during the period 2015–2017. Building on the knowledge sourcing literature, we conjecture that cluster firms primarily build knowledge-seeking horizontal linkages with technologically similar companies, and that this splits the network into multiple technological communities within which firms are tightly connected, but between which linkages are scarce. We further propose that community-spanning firms which build horizontal linkages that bridge technological communities are more likely to conduct radical innovation than their peers. We finally argue that no relation exists between technological proximity and community formation in the network of vertical buyer-supplier relations. Using a voltage-based algorithm for community discovery, we draw empirical support for these predictions. We discuss the implications of our findings for Bengaluru's upgrading potential.

Our understanding of how an organisation operates is elucidated by the host country's political system. Myanmar has remained abstruse to researchers for many decades, as do most emerging markets prior to their transition from a centrally planned economy to a market economy such as China. We establish how the problematising and contextualisation of the methodologies adopted during longitudinal fieldwork in Myanmar (2008 to 2016) has influenced our research focus and question. By reflecting on our experience of conducting organisational research in a highly institutionalised environment, we have identified limitations in the prevalent research methodologies used by the extant literature. Such methodologies tend to be incompatible with the Asian context. This process of problematisation required us to remain flexible and adaptive during the process of the generation of the research questions. We adopted a context-informed theory-building process and reflect on the interplay between interviewer, interviewees, and local institutional contexts. An important insight from this process was the need to nullify the asymmetry of power between the interviewer and interviewees to obtain honest responses rather than superficial data that aimed to satisfy and please the interviewer/institutional context.

In this article, I propose a typology of thinking pattern that helps us understand the variants of the so-called ‘both/and thinking’ shared by many organizational paradox scholars in the West and China. The variants are distinguished by the ‘primary thinking-secondary thinking’ structure between the combined elementary thinking. One of the variants, i.e., Neither-And thinking, is associated with James March's discussion of logic of consequences and logic of appropriateness. An examination of March's writings reveals an additional ‘principle-practice’ structure underlining March's unique solution to paradox. Incorporating the ‘principle-practice’ structure into the proposed typology in turn helps us better understand the other variants of ‘both/and thinking’ such as ambidexterity, contingency, and Zhong-Yong. The typology shows March's Neither-And solution is unique because it embraces a primary neither/nor thinking while all the other variants do not. To demonstrate the value of March's unique solution, I apply Neither-And thinking characterized by the ‘principle-practice’ relationship to paradoxes outside organization studies, e.g., in Deconstruction, Buddhism, and quantum physics. The wide application of Neither-And thinking implies that James March's unique solution to organizational paradox may have provided a key to understanding paradox in general.

China, which was once a world champion in invention, has failed to maintain its global leadership in innovation after the middle of the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644). Today, frame-breaking innovations are more likely to originate from European and North American countries than from China. In the perspective article (Augier, Guo, & Rowen, 2016), the authors attribute this phenomenon, which is often referred to as the Needham Puzzle, to three reasons: (1) the Chinese did not develop a scientific method like that in the West; (2) lack of educational diversity and structural inertia in China; and (3) lack of openness to the outside world. The authors also attribute the US's leadership in innovation to its culture of encouraging experimentation, tolerating failure and accepting deviance, and to its institutional support for decentralization of and competition in R&D and basic research. This commentary aims to enrich this insightful analysis. We focus on (1) the reasons for the demise of Chinese leadership in science and technology since the middle of the Ming dynasty, and (2) the historical and cultural obstacles to the development of frame-breaking innovations in modern China.

The influence of technological learning on industry-level catch-up has long drawn substantial attention in the catch-up research field. However, the underlying mechanisms of technological learning and the unique catch-up context in large emerging economies are much less explored. To explain the technological learning processes of latecomers that face the technology gap and strive to build differentiated competitive advantage, this study builds on the absorptive capacity perspective and deconstructs technological learning processes into two mechanisms: technology decomposition and technology recombination. The former entails decomposing advanced technologies into pieces, parts, or modules, while the latter entails the process of capturing market opportunities through recombining knowledge from diverse sources into commercial products through localized innovations and adaptations. Then, we propose a unique ‘ladder-like’ catch-up context (i.e., technology ladder and market ladder) and investigate how the technological learning process and the unique catch-up context jointly affect industrial catch-up performance in China. Using seven-year panel data from Chinese manufacturing industries, the results indicate that only technology recombination has a significantly positive relationship with industrial catch-up performance. In addition, the market ladder strengthens the positive impact of technology recombination on industrial catch-up, while the technology ladder weakens the positive impact of technology decomposition on catch-up.

Employee performance attainment is a pervasive issue in the workplace and is increasingly becoming an important problem for effective human resource management. A review of the extant literature on perceived organizational support (POS) and performance suggests that there is a dearth of research aimed at examining the underlying mechanisms and the boundary conditions of the relationship between POS and performance. One of the objectives of this study is to examine the mediating role of psychological capital on the relationship between POS and performance. Furthermore, this study investigates the moderating role of organizational justice perception in said indirect relationship. Study 1 included a sample of 465 employees from both large private life insurance and telecom organizations. Study 2 was conducted on a sample of 216 employees from a large steel manufacturing firm. Findings suggest that psychological capital mediated the relationship between POS and performance. The indirect relationship of POS and performance via psychological capital was moderated by organizational justice. However, there is a counter-intuitive finding in this research. It was observed that at a high level of organizational justice, it had a smaller effect on performance in contrast to low level of organizational justice. Finally, theoretical contributions and managerial implications are discussed.

Chance serves as the gate to organizational change. Based on a relational view of chance, we propose that in an organizational context, the chance to change is affected by the perceptions of change agents and the affordance of situational momentum, and that different time points of change are associated with different degrees of chance favorability. We develop a theoretical model to represent how change agents can assess the favorability of current and future momentum and how they can benefit from identifying a perceived chance by employing chance grasping, entraining, creating, or riding strategy to promote organizational change. We generate theoretical propositions to illustrate the four timing strategies of chance management. The overall contribution of this study is a chance management view of organizational change that considers change agents and situational momentum as two interdependent factors in the process of managing the chance to change.

China, the world's largest market for electric vehicles (EV), has put in play a state industrial policy that is seeking to upend global automakers (see Financial Times, October 12, 2017 and May 20, 2018). Exemptions from taxes and subsidy programs have favored the purchasing of an EV, which are also exempt from driving restrictions in large cities such as Beijing and Shanghai. Policies that target manufacturers include meeting production targets for EVs (the so-called dual-credit policy by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology). China may be on the verge of becoming a global disruptor in an industry that has home market advantages of scale, lower fossil fuel imports, and significant reduction of air pollution in cities while exploiting related technologies such as lithium batteries where China has world class industrial competence. It is in China's national interest to be a game changer in the global automotive industry from fossil fuel to electricity. And building infrastructure – supercharging stations included – fits the government-directed approach that aspires to establish the country as an undisputable global leader in a high-tech sector of global significance.

How can a firm apply the appropriate interaction between exploration and exploitation with the goal of either radical or incremental innovation? In this study, we seek to answer this puzzling question by reframing exploitation and exploration as a duality of learning (i.e., two modes that are partial complementary for synergy as well as partial conflicting for tradeoff). Specifically, rather than assuming either a positive or negative interaction between exploration and exploitation as prior literature has done, our study highlights a novel pattern of inverted U-shaped interaction between exploration and exploitation for both radical and incremental innovations. With a Chinese sample of 508 firms, our empirical evidence supports our prediction of two patterns of inverted U-shaped interaction of exploration and exploitation. Such unique findings showcase the unique value of reframing paradox into duality from the meta-perspective of yin-yang balancing to shed new light on organizational ambidexterity and innovation management.

During technology transitions, incumbents are frequently faced with the ambidextrous challenge of exploiting existing capabilities and exploring new ones. While extant studies focus on radical changes in the product domain, we notice radical changes can happen in both product and market domains. Pioneering studies indicate that cross-functional ambidexterity addresses this challenge at the business-unit level by juxtaposing exploration and exploitation across different functional domains (particularly in product and market domains) and that complementary assets address this challenge at the organizational level. However, how efforts at two levels can be combined to build cross-functional ambidexterity and what roles complementary assets play remain unclear. Therefore, this study conducts an in-depth case study of Huawei Mobile, which managed to achieve superior performance during a technology transition that triggers radical changes in both product and market domains. We find that multi-level synergies contribute to the transition process. Specifically, cross-functional ambidexterity is constructed by prioritizing exploration in the product domain ahead of that in the market domain, and that it generates learning, brand and channel extension, matching, and brand alliance benefits at the business-unit level. Complementary assets help to reduce the uncertainty of exploration and resolve functional conflicts at the organizational level.

A cartel is an association of independent businesses for the purpose of regulating trade in an industry. There are three important reasons for studying international cartels: they will become important in the future; they are of immense historical significance; and they are poorly understood. This paper reviews the economic, political, and historical literatures on international cartels and considers the lessons for international business theory and policy. If IB researchers are to retain their reputation for policy-relevance, they must engage with the issue of institutional responses to globalization, and this must include the analysis of cartels.

In this study we explore the emotional and cognitive dimensions of Chinese business leaders’ social competence. We argue for a culturally inclusive conceptualization of leader social competence and its internal structure, which takes into account Chinese indigenous features. Data were collected by critical incident interviews from 42 top executives of small- and medium-sized private enterprises in China. A total of 302 competency episodes were included in the current study. Grounded theory was used for data analysis. The following xin (heart-mind)-based social competencies were referenced in episodes of effective Chinese competency-relevant social interactions: guanxi building and maintenance, empathy, inspiration with wisdom, empowerment and developing others, resilience, and appreciation of problem solving. Each of these competencies includes an emotional and a cognitive element and embodies dynamic interplay between the emotional and cognitive dimensions of social competence. Xin-based social competencies impact effective interactions in relational contexts that implicate the individual self, the organizational self, and their interactions. The theoretical contributions and practical implications of the findings are discussed.

Institutional logics are interrelated sets of cultural elements (norms, values, beliefs, and symbols) that help people and organizations make sense of their everyday activities and order those activities in time and space. In this paper, we describe the rise of a robust literature on institutional logics, which mostly focuses on Western societies. We then describe changes in Chinese society and economy over the past four decades, as it shifted from state-controlled planning and redistribution to market-mediated exchange. We detail how the institutional logics that guide Chinese firms have been transformed in the wake of the economic transition. The state logic, which developed in the Maoist era, valorizes equality, national community, and political stability. Although it is still in evidence, it has been partly supplanted by a market logic that encourages efficiency, competition, and property rights. But this market logic differs from the one that prevails in Western capitalist economies. The Chinese version of the market logic valorizes the central role that the state and the Communist Party continue to play in economic life. Therefore, in the Chinese version of the market logic, efficiency, competition, and property rights are tempered by a continued concern for political stability. We review and summarize the existing literature on institutional logics and Chinese firms, and then identify fruitful lines that future research could take.

Multinational enterprises (MNEs) transfer their corporate strategies to subsidiaries globally, and in so doing, embark on a translation process. Despite the prevalence of MNEs and their investments in emerging economies, little is known about how local factors affect key actors when translating corporate talent management (CTM) strategies to these regions. This study draws from the translation and talent management literatures to explore the travel of ideas in the context of CTM. Relevant frames (narratives that emerge around actions) and actors are proposed and explored empirically in a qualitative study of 76 employees across an Australian mining MNE with subsidiaries located in Latin America. The findings support extant literature as well as uncovering new frames (categorized in external or corporate, and internal or local) and actors (including non-managerial) as part of the translation process. The findings suggest the need to balance talent management strategies between corporate and subsidiaries by being aware of internal and external frames including in both urban and rural locations. This understanding provides further clarification of the global versus local paradox faced by MNEs. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.

This study provides new insight into the effectiveness of different knowledge acquisition strategies for organizations at different positions in a production network. Component specialists and systems integrators require a different knowledge repertoire in terms of knowledge depth and knowledge breadth. We show that a greater reliance on inter-organizational partnering than on intra-organizational acquiring is effective in the acquisition of knowledge breadth rather than knowledge depth. And the positive effect of a greater reliance on inter-organizational partnering on knowledge breadth is particularly strong for system integrators.

This study examines the international performance of emerging economy multinational enterprises (EMNEs) from a strategic configuration perspective. We propose that the strategic patterns of EMNEs that deliver growth and/or profitability are characterized by different configurations of environment, strategy, and managerial resource factors. Therefore, identifying and assessing strategic configurations is key to understanding EMNEs’ international performance. Employing fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis, we analyze a multi-sourced dataset of Chinese firms’ outward investment and identify multiple equifinal strategic configurations that are associated with superior international performance in terms of sales growth and/or profitability. These findings inform the development of a taxonomy of EMNEs’ strategic configurations corresponding with three performance groups, namely profitable growth, profitable niche, and poor performers.