This is a follow-up discussion about the Chinese electric vehicle (EV) sector, in particular the relative prospects of traditional automotive manufacturers and new ‘species’, four years after our last conversation on this topic (Jiang & Lu, 2018). It is also a response to Murmann and Vogt's (2022) latest article, which goes beyond Teece's (2019) focus on dynamic capabilities and constructs a systematic framework of firm capabilities to understand the competitive dynamics during a transformational shift of products.

The liability of foreignness increases firm risk of doing business abroad. However, it appears not to deter Chinese firms as evidenced by their risky internationalization pattern. This study is concerned with explaining this phenomenon. Drawing on organizational learning and institutional theories, I argue that institutional heterogeneity in China gives firms an opportunity to develop routines to overcome the liability of foreignness through acquisition experience gained outside of their home provinces. Further, I propose that coastal and inland firms draw different routines from their acquisition experiences. I test these arguments on panel data of listed Chinese firms, tracing their acquisition behavior from 2006 to 2015. My analyses suggest that acquisition experience outside of home province matters and that, in the case of inland firms, coastal acquisition experience facilitates subsequent internationalization. The present study contributes to the literature on the internationalization of Chinese firms. It highlights the value of context-specific measures for Chinese management research, sheds light on the functionality of institutional heterogeneity in China, and provides evidence to re-evaluate the riskiness of Chinese firms’ internationalization pattern.

Recently, we attended the Second MOR Research Frontiers Conference hosted by Indian Institute of Management Bangalore in India. The theme of the conference was ‘The SME Ecology of Transforming Economies: Knowledge Creation, Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Economic Growth’. As Professor Peter Murmann stressed, the purpose of this frontier conference was about collectively exploring and extending the frontier of research, and therefore, a number of emerging topics were discussed. The conference highlighted for us the great potential of research about India or comparative studies across transitional economies, especially between India and China. Below we highlight a few thoughts or reflections.

Decision makers inevitably face a variety of tensions when managing strategic change. Research from organization and strategy perspectives, such as paradox and organizational learning, has offered useful but limited insight into the systematic mindset and thinking processes involved in decision making. We draw on theoretical and philosophical foundations of the transparadox perspective and related theories to build a dynamic process cycle of transparadoxical decision making. Three interrelated dimensions make up our model: (1) Transparadox Information Navigation, which includes embracing oppositional tendencies, syncretic focus, and creative transcendence; (2) Transparadox Contextual Consideration, characterized by prudent precision and recognizing the flux of temporality and spatiality; and (3) Transparadox Integration, which comprises design-type integration and exploration-type integration. We then present propositions on the interdependent and reinforcing mechanism among the three dimensions. Our work expands the paradox literature with specific mindset dimensions and constituent elements, connecting paradox research with the cognitive perspective by adding dynamic, cyclical processes to paradox cognition study.

In honouring John Child receiving the 2012 IACMR Lifetime Contribution Award, we present this Editors’ Forum to showcase his research into the influence of country context on organizations. The forum starts with an invited paper by Child and Marinova that analyzes the challenges faced by Chinese firms in their outward foreign investment. This is followed by four commentaries from Klaus Meyer, Peter Murmann, Kwok Leung, and Gordon Redding. The forum concludes with some reflections by Child and Marinova on the commentaries. Collectively, these six papers provide rich and inspiring insights into John Child’s approach to research and how we can learn from it. Five general observations are offered as suggestions for improving current research practice, including: (1) deepening contextual understanding; (2) theorizing across disciplines; (3) respecting the phenomenon; (4) recognizing cultural contingencies; and (5) rebalancing research criteria.

I wish to congratulate the editorial team on their forthright lead article in MOR12.4 regarding the state of empirical research in our field. I strongly endorse the aspiration of making the field more scientific. I understand the need to regain confidence in published empirical social science. But I would not wish readers to come away with the idea that such concerns define the heart of the discipline. The paper was quite properly concerned with bringing empirical research up to the highest standards. But let us not forget that there is another endeavor running in partnership, and in any review, it should not be taken for granted. I refer to theory-building.

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.

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.

The question of whether narcissists are more creative than peers has attracted much scholarly attention in both psychology and organizational management sciences. Drawing from social cognitive theory, we theorized that the relationship between narcissism and creativity could be explained by individual creative self-efficacy, which depends on one's direct and vicarious experiences of creativity. Drawing from trait activation theory, we further proposed organizational valuing of creativity as a key contextual moderator that determines whether narcissism facilitates or inhibits creative self-efficacy and, in turn, creativity. We suggest that high organizational valuing of creativity will energize narcissists to put their attention and effort into both direct and vicarious experiences of creativity, enhancing their creative self-efficacy and creativity. We tested our conceptual model through a field study with data collected from 269 full-time employees working in 86 work teams. The empirical results provided support for the social cognitive explanation for the positive relationship between narcissism and creativity in the context of high organizational valuing of creativity. Our study not only resolved prior debates on the relationship between narcissism and creativity but also provided direct empirical support for social cognitive theory and the person-in-context interactionist perspective of creativity research.

This article examines whether firms engaged in high levels of voluntary CSR (corporate social responsibility) alter their strategic choices in response to detrimental public policy – specifically India's Companies Act (2013) that mandates qualifying firms to spend 2% of their three-year average net profits on CSR. Drawing on the concept of organizational dormancy, we argue that firm capabilities, political awareness, exposure to political pluralism, and ownership identity may explain choice heterogeneity among these firms. Our key and non-intuitive finding is that even in the absence of discretionary choice in determining optimal CSR expenditure, firms are less likely to choose dormancy and instead embrace and even surpass the stipulations of the law in their CSR contributions. Also, politically aware firms are more likely to opt for dormancy over compliance. Managerial and policy implications are discussed.

Using Isaiah Berlin’s distinction between foxes and hedgehogs, John Child’s approach to management research has been described as a fox in a community dominated by hedgehogs. I thus explore Child’s approach to conducting research on China-related phenomena, and place his new work into this trajectory. In doing so, I offer insights into the opportunities and limitations of developing research agendas and generating new theoretical insights from research that is deeply contextualized.