In this perspective article, I draw on transition research that has been developed to account for the transitions in many socio-technical systems within human society, such as energy, water, and food. I argue that many ideas developed in transition research can be applied to the ecosystem of contemporary business schools in China for its transformation. Using the multi-level perspective (MLP) from transition research as an analytic framework, I examine the socio-technical system of business schools in China for understanding the main forces that may shape a potential transition of the sector. I also draw on transition management theory and insights from research on the politics of transitions for important conditions that are required to enable a transition in this specific context.

This article takes group subsidiaries that were listed in the A-share market of Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges in China from 2012 to 2017 as the research subject and innovatively explores the impact of subsidiary TMT (top management team) attention at different networks on subsidiary innovation, considering dual network embedding characteristics and autonomy of subsidiaries. Results show that subsidiary TMT group network attention will inhibit subsidiary innovation, while their external network attention will promote subsidiary innovation, after the inclusion of industry category factors, the effect has changed accordingly, but the moderating effect of subsidiary autonomy on the relationship between subsidiary TMT attention on different networks and subsidiary innovation is always significant. The identification of subsidiary TMT attention not only supplements to current literature's narrow focus on impact of the group parent company attention on subsidiary behaviors, but also broadens theoretical understanding of the driving factors of innovation behavior of subsidiaries. Through expounding on the moderating role of subsidiary autonomy, this article clarifies boundary conditions of subsidiary TMT attention's impact on subsidiary innovation and provides operable guidance for subsidiary TMT to allocate and utilize their attention to promote the development of subsidiary innovation behaviors.

Size is an important antecedent of firm survival, and several studies theoretically sustain and empirically support a ‘liability of middleness’. Indeed, it is widely believed that companies should act strategically to either become large or remain small and occupy a niche position, because mid-sized firms face the strongest market selection pressures. This study challenges that logic in renewable natural resource industries. Measuring size as product-line scale and firm-level portfolio breadth, we argue that in industries characterized by cost competition, the lack of product differentiation, large capital investments, and sharp price oscillation, scale and breadth have a curvilinear effect on survival that favors mid-sized firms rather than penalizing them. An empirical analysis of the US pulp and paper (P&P) industry over the period 1970–2000 strongly supports our arguments. This study is particularly relevant for emerging economies, in which natural resource industries represent an important portion of the total economic activity.

The Needham Puzzle is part of a larger and very complex historical enigma. What explains the slow-down in scientific innovation in China about five hundred years ago? Also, after a recent forty-year period of growth not heavily dependent on spontaneous innovation, are such inherited influences returning to the surface as significant obstacles at a time when innovativeness is becoming more strategic?

In this study, we argue that foreign subsidiaries may benefit from the corporate strategies of multinational enterprises (MNEs) in different ways in terms of knowledge transfer and strategic flexibility. From this viewpoint, we explore the relationship between product diversification and financial performance of their subsidiaries under the condition of MNE geographic diversification. Using panel data on foreign subsidiaries in European countries from 2006 to 2011, we find a U-shaped relationship between product diversification and subsidiary performance and the joint effect of product and geographic diversification. Given the importance of transition economies in international business today, we conducted a subsample test contrasting the results based on the transitional (Central and Eastern European) versus Western European countries. The contrasting results provide important implications for other transition economies like China. We validate the relationship in several ways in our robustness tests.

Integrating the literature on talent management and teams, and drawing upon the signaling theory as the overarching framework, we investigated the moderated indirect effects of talent inducements on employee creativity via employee work engagement in teams. Empirical data from matched leader-members indicated that team talent inducement was positively related to member work engagement, which was then positively associated with team and member creativity. In addition, individual learning and performance-approach goal orientation positively moderated this indirect relationship, whereas individual performance-avoidance goal orientation negatively moderated this indirect relationship. Together, these results illuminate a cross-level influence process of team talent inducements on creativity and individual goal orientations as boundary conditions.

This study examines how cognitive categorization by host-country investors give rise to negative spillovers among host-country foreign-listed firms from the same home country when one of these foreign-listed firms discloses a financial reporting irregularity. This study further examines how attributes of host-country independent directors mitigate such negative spillover effects through signaling fulfilment of their fiduciary duties. Our results based on Chinese foreign-listed firms on the Singapore Stock Exchange from 2007–2014 reveal that host-country independent directors increase spillover effects among foreign-listed Chinese firms from financial reporting irregularities. However, such increase is attenuated when these directors signal fulfilment of their fiduciary duties through home-country, industry, or task-related experiences, and the observed mitigating effect is stronger when they possess a combination of these experiences.

In this research, we explore how supply networks and board interlocks – as distinct, yet parallel interorganizational networks – jointly influence firms’ entry into new technology domains and exit from old technology domains. Drawing from the perspectives of social networks and organizational learning we highlight the relevance of the interdependency between these networks for a firm's technological entry and exit decisions. We argue that a firm that maintains a large number of supplier ties is more likely to enter new technology domains and exit from old technology domains instead. We further find empirical evidence that the degree centrality of a firm in its board interlock network strengthens these effects. Our theoretical arguments are supported through stochastic actor-based modeling analysis for the longitudinal and multilevel networks of 86 firms active in the Chinese automotive during 2011–2015. These findings inform the literature on interorganizational network dynamics as we insert relational pluralism to examine the complexities of organizational relationships as antecedents to a firms’ technological entry and exit. Finally, we imagine the implications of our analysis for management as they shed light on how multiple interorganizational relationships affect firms’ decisions on new technology entry and old technology exit.

This paper comments on Yulun Ma and Yue Hu's (2021) recent article ‘Business Model Innovation and Experimentation in Transforming Economies: ByteDance and TikTok’. It argues that TikTok's international success is not due to so-called business model innovation; instead, it is because ByteDance has overcome three major hurdles facing emerging market firms pursuing internationalization. It also posits that the case of TikTok offers inspiration for theorizing paradox, namely, individuals and organizations can solve paradoxical tensions by increasing capacity through the use of advanced technologies.

Transforming economies such as the BRIC countries – Ex-Soviet Republics, or Eastern European countries – share national aspirations of becoming innovation economies. These aspirations have stimulated a push for entrepreneurship and experimentation with new ways of doing things. This has created a fascinating context for research on business model innovation, relating to the way incumbent firms adapt their business models or come up with entirely new models. Similarly, new business models may be originated by start-up companies that often are challenging and leapfrogging the ‘tired’ old business models or simply invent new ones. However, research that specifically explores indigenous business model innovation in the context of these transforming economies is still in its early stages. The MOR special issue on ‘Business Model Innovation in Transforming Economies’ aims to address this gap by soliciting research uncovering successful new business models that is indigenous to these economies, as they transition to becoming innovation economies themselves and contribute to strategy and management theory development.

We study two quick-service restaurant (QSR) chains based on regional ethnic foods that were launched in China and India. The products that these QSR ventures offered had hitherto been sold by fragmented street vendors who typically operated single outlets. Inspired by the successful business models of international QSR brands, these entrepreneurs developed business models to popularize their chosen regional ethnic foods in multiple new regions and grew their organizations to 1,400 and 300 outlets in China and India, respectively. We build on the recently coined concept of ‘secondary’ business model innovation (SBMI), which is based on inter-organizational learning, break down its constituents into creative and imitative, specify the mechanisms through which it is achieved, and propose that it is a specific case of the more general construct of creative imitation.

We appreciate this invitation to comment on the paper on Western perceptions of Chinese culture, to provide an insider perspective. Because of its unique perspective on Chinese historical teachings, the study reminds us about the challenges in learning and applying indigenous knowledge. For example, it compares the lens of war and business in many dimensions, such as a focus on an enemy (war) or on customers (business), a matter of life and death (war) or not (business), one competitor (war) or a number of competitors (business), deception (war) or secrecy (business), or a one-time relationship (war) or a long-term relationship (business). The paper offers us a striking warning about the risk of overdrawing historical analogies in management research.

This study investigates how venture capital firms (VCs) choose syndication partners. Exponential random graph models of Chinese VC syndication networks from 2006 to 2013 show that the homophily mechanism does not always determine VCs’ partner selection. In selecting partners, VCs have to strike a balance between reducing uncertainty and mobilizing heterogeneous resources. Therefore, decisions about partners depend on institutional uncertainty and VCs’ investment preferences. While VCs that focus on traditional business in an immature market are more likely to form homogeneous syndications, their peers that prefer to invest in innovative companies and that can rely on a stable market tend to syndicate with heterogeneous partners.