The challenge of integrating context when theorizing is not unique to research on management in emerging economies (MEE). Principally, all management scholars aspiring a theoretical contribution should be concerned about context, as emphasized by Whetten (1989: 492) in his oft-cited guidelines.

Instead of importing Western models of intelpersonal trust, we adopted a qualitative approach to understand trust relationships from indigenous cultures' perspectives. We examined trust relationships directed at diilerent foci in the organization (supervisor, peer, and subordinate) in two different countries, Turkey and China. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 30 Turkish and 30 Chinese employees working for a variety of large-scale organizations located in Istanbul, Turkey and Shenzhen, China. We report the content analysis of trust-building critical incidents narrated by the respondents. While the general antecedents of Ability, Benevolence, and Integrity were found to exist in both countries. Benevolence, with its culture-specific manifestations, played a very important role in trust-building across multiple foci in both countries. We also found that trust relationships in these two contexts tended to go beyond the professional domain, and to involve sharing of personal time, information, and space. Drawing on this evidence, we propose a trust-building process that is more affective in nature and which straddles both work and non-work domains.

What is the relationship between individual members' organizational citizenship behaviours (OCB) and team-level performance? Using a social cognitive perspective, the current study proposes that the relationship is mediated by a team's cohesion and collective efficacy. We collected data at two points in time from three sources with a sample of 462 salespersons representing 62 teams (62 branches) of a financial institute in Taiwan. The results support the theoretical argument that OCB positively influences organizational performance. Furthermore, group cohesion and collective efficacy fully mediated the direct effects of OCB towards individuals and the organization on team performance. Theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed.

We examine the influence of social distance on levels of trust and reciprocity in China. Social distance, reflected in the indigenous concept of guanxi, is of central importance to Chinese culture. In Study 1, some participants participated in two financially salient trust games to measure behaviour, one with an anonymous classmate and the other with an anonymous, demographically identical non-classmate. Other participants, drawn from the same population, completed hypothetical surveys to gauge both hypothetical behaviour and expectations of others. Social distance effects on actual and hypothetical behaviour were statistically consistent. The results together corroborated the hypothesized negative relationship between trust and social distance. However, reciprocity was not responsive to social distance. Study 2 found that affect-based trust, but not cognition-based trust, played a mediating role in the relationship between social distance and interpersonal trust in a hypothetical scenario. We conclude that close guanxi ties in China engender affect-based trust, which is extended to shouren classmates. This is true despite the fact that no more cognition-based trust is placed nor reciprocity received or expected from classmates compared to demographically identical shengren non-classmates.

Five schools of Chinese cultural traditions that implicitly influence current management thought in China are used to create a four-factor Structure of Chinese Cultural Traditions (SCCT) model. A sample of 2658 people in businesses in Beijing was used to develop the dimensions that were then cross-validated in a nation-wide sample of 718 business employees. The four dimensions show plausible patterns of convergent and discriminant validity with generic domains of values represented by the Schwartz Value Survey (SVS). We suggest that the Structure of Chinese Cultural Traditions provides a unique model of Chinese culture that complements other generic measures, thereby allowing a deep understanding of Chinese culture.

In a cross-cultural experiment, we examined how task interdependence influences the importance of organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB) in employee performance evaluations in China and the USA. A total of 150 graduate students in China and 154 in the USA (a total of 304), who serve as evaluators, participated in the experiment. Participants were exposed to a task interdependence manipulation and then rated the importance of OCB in their overall performance evaluations of employees. Results support the moderating effects of national culture (both using a country proxy and as a measure of collectivism) on the affects of task interdependence. Although among evaluators from the USA perceptions of the importance of OCB increased as task interdependence increased, the effects of task interdependence were significandy attenuated among evaluators from China. Implications of these results for research and practice are discussed.

The articles in this forum present many innovative ideas on the role of culture in creativity. In this commentary, we first discuss the contributions of these articles in relation to two recurrent themes: (i) where creativity resides and (ii) what conceptual refinements are needed to push the field forward. Next, we oudine a process model of creativity and explain the role of culture at each stage of knowledge creation. We argue that successful innovation involves one or more iterations of the following three stages: (i) authoring new ideas; (ii) selecting, editing, and marketing new ideas; and (iii) acceptance of the new ideas in the market. The desired outcomes are different at the different stages, and culture influences all stages of the process. Specifically, existing knowledge provides a reference point for evaluating the originality of ideas; assumed cultural consensus provides the normative basis for idea selection, editing, and marketing; and actual cultural norms determine how likely an idea will be accepted in a culture. Furthermore, different social and psychological processes are at work at different stages of the creativity process, and culture can affect the outcomes of the creativity process through its effects on these social and psychological processes.

In this study, we examine culture-specific relationships between individual differences and distributive negotiations. We measured individual characteristics and their effects on distributive negotiations in both American and Chinese cultures, using a Western-based scale (the ‘Big Five’) and a Chinese-based scale (CPAI). We found that agreeableness and extraversion (from the ‘Big Five’) affected negotiations for Americans, but not for Chinese. We found that harmony, face and Ren Qing (from the Chinese-based scales) affected negotiations for Chinese, but not for Americans. Specifically, we found that in the American culture, those higher in extraversion and agreeableness achieved lower economic gain, whereas in the Chinese context that those high in harmony, face, and Ren Qing were more likely to be influenced by opening offers and achieve lower economic gain in distributive negotiations. Our study highlights the need to examine negotiations using culturally sensitive constructs and measures.

In this article we provide a comprehensive framework to explain, in China and in Western countries, how three antecedents – regulations, stakeholder norms, and managerial mindsets – differently affect proactive environmental strategies (PES) and subsequently influence firm performance. A meta-analysis of 68 studies involving 71 samples supports our hypotheses. In Western countries, top managerial mindsets have the strongest effect and regulations have the weakest effect on PES. In China, regulations, stakeholder norms, and managerial mindsets have similar effects on PES. For Western firms, the PES has stronger effects on environmental performance than on economic performance and the effect on environmental performance is stronger than that in Chinese firms. For firms in China, the PES has equally positively affects on environmental and economic performance, but the effect on economic performance is stronger than that of Western firms. Implications for future research are discussed.

The manner in which technological capability and marketing capability can besuccessfully leveraged is an important research issue. Based on theresource-management model, this study aims to answer two research questions:(1) whether technological capability and marketing capability arecomplementary or supplementary capabilities; and (2) how technologicalcapability and marketing capability can be used appropriately to respond toenvironmental turbulence. Based on a face-to-face interview survey of 212Chinese firms, we find that technological capability and marketingcapability have synergistic effects. We also find that technologicalturbulence enhances the performance effect of technological capability, butimpedes that of marketing capability; whereas market turbulence advances theperformance effect of marketing capability, but impedes that oftechnological capability. Thus, the appropriate way to leveragetechnological capability and marketing capability is to integrate them andto deploy technological capability to respond to technological turbulenceand marketing capability to respond to market turbulence.

Authoritarian leaders make unilateral decisions and prevail over subordinates. Such leadership, as a style of exercising formal authority and position power, may inhibit employees’ extra-role behaviors in the hierarchical role structure. We explore employees’ role perceptions to better understand how supervisors’ authoritarian leadership decreases extra-role behaviors (OCBs). Authoritarian behavior is expected to generate subordinate perceptions of role conflict, role ambiguity, and role overload, with consequent negative effects on OCB. Hypotheses are tested using data from 613 subordinate – supervisor dyads. Empirical results indicate that authoritarian leadership increases subordinate role conflict and overload which then decreases OCB. Authoritarian behavior also increases role ambiguity, but role ambiguity is not associated with OCB. The article concludes with research suggestions and practical implications.

Informal networking can be seen as a positive activity with beneficial outcomes for individuals, firms, and society as a whole, but informal networking can also lead to collusion, cliques, nepotism, and other forms of unethical or corrupt conduct – largely related to research on emerging markets. To date, the construction of informal networks and their cultural intertwinement and development have not been a focus of international management and organization studies, a gap that this special issue seeks to address. This special issue contributes to a better understanding of the dynamics of informal networks and their ambivalence, in which the same networks have different modes of operation and have positive and negative sides intermittently or simultaneously. We demonstrate the context in which informal networks operate, highlight their complexity, and encourage dialogue among scholars studying informal networks in a variety of countries. Using a context-based and comparative perspective allows us to conceptualize informal networks in a more integrated and balanced way. Understanding the workings of informal networking – known variously as guanxi, yongo, jentinho, wasta, and blat – in culturally specific settings, places Western values, social structures, and ideals of behavior in perspective and tests Western-centered assumptions, narratives, and theories. Because informal networking is a conventional way of conducting business in many countries, as depicted in this special issue, defining the bright (positive) and the dark (negative) sides of informal networks is critical for responsible management and business success at multinational corporations.

This paper investigates the effect of decision-makers' culture on their implicit choice of how to make decisions. In a content analysis of major decisions described in American and Chinese twentieth-century novels, we test a series of hypotheses based on prior theoretical and empirical investigations of cross-cultural variation in human motivation and decision processes. The data show a striking degree of cultural similarity in the relationships between decision content, situational characteristics and the decision mode(s) employed, but also support several hypotheses about cultural differences. As predicted, Chinese decision-makers more frequently used role-based logic (a form of recognition-based decision-making) to arrive at decisions, by virtue of their greater awareness of and need for relational obligations. The hypothesis (based on conjectures about Chinese thinking style and personality differences) that Chinese decision-makers would show more rule-and case-based decision-making (two other variants of recognition-based decision-making) than decision-makers in American novels was also supported. After controlling for other predictor variables, there also was support for the hypothesis (based on comparative analyses of Chinese and Western philosophy) that analytic modes which base decisions on the calculation of best consequences would be used less frequendy by Chinese decision-makers. There was no evidence of greater prevention focus in Chinese decisions. These and other observed cultural similarities and differences in the dynamics of decision mode selection have implications for the study and practice of decision-making in managerial settings.

A long-standing debate has taken place in the organizational sociology and social network literatures about the relative advantages of network closure versus structural holes in the generation of social capital. There is recent evidence that these advantages differ across cultures and between East Asia and the West in particular, but existing network models are unable to explain why or address cultural variation in general. This paper seeks to provide a solution by integrating a culture-embedded rational model of action into the social network model of structure, using this not only to re-examine the closure versus structural hole debate, but also to tie it to the literature on Confucian capitalism and the ‘East Asian Model’ of the firm. We argue that this integrated approach allows us to systematically analyse the relationship between culture and behaviour in networks and, more specifically, to explain why closure has been a more powerful source of productivity in East Asia than the West.

This study concerns balance in exchange relationships as described in the psychological contract literature about employees’ and employers’ promises and fulfilment of these promises. Balance is investigated, firstly, in relation to temporary versus permanent employment and, secondly, in relation to employees’ attitudes (fairness, job satisfaction, and intention to quit). Analyses were based on a Dutch sample of 290 temporary and 489 permanent workers. Regarding balance in mutual promises, we found that temporary workers were more likely to have psychological contracts with few mutual promises than permanent workers, while permanent workers were more likely to have psychological contracts with many mutual promises compared to temporary workers. Regarding balance in the fulfilment of promises, we found the opposite pattern, namely, that fulfilment was higher in temporary workers compared to permanent workers. Furthermore, only mutual high fulfilment of promises was associated with higher job satisfaction and fairness and with lower intentions to quit.

This article responds to recent calls for organizational research to address larger, more globally relevant questions and to pay attention to history, by analyzing the crucial debate over intellectual property rights (IPR) between the United States and China. Despite the recent US position, the United States has not always been a leading IPR advocate. Rather, it was a leading IPR violator during the nineteenth century. An institution-based view of IPR history suggests that both the US refusal to protect foreign IPR in the nineteenth century and the current Chinese lack of enthusiasm to meet US IPR demands represent rational choices. However, as cost-benefit considerations change institutional transitions are possible. We predict that to the same extent the United States voluntarily agreed to strengthen IPR protection when its economy became sufficiently innovation-driven, China will similarly improve its IPR protection.

We address the institutional voids hypothesis, which suggests affiliation with a business group will improve a firm's performance in circumstances of poor-quality institutions and extensive market failures. We hypothesize that initial positive effects of group affiliation should decline as the quality of market institutions improves. Further, we hypothesize that differences in state and private ownership will influence the value and persistence of firm affiliation. Using data on 476 publicly listed firms in 1999 and 467 matched firms in 2004, we find support for a temporal hypothesis that affiliation with a business group improves performance, but the value of group affiliation declines over time. We also find support for a state ‘helping hand’ hypothesis that suggests firms with high levels of state ownership initially experienced an amplified value effect from their group affiliation, which disappeared by 2004. The results suggest that China's policy makers are beginning to establish an institutional and market infrastructure that is conducive to entry by unaffiliated, freestanding firms.

This paper examines how the rise of a market economy in urban China redefines the rules governing economic activities and affects on earnings inequality. We identify three causal mechanisms linked to institutional change that are transforming the firm's employment practices: the higher marginal productivity of a private enterprise economy relative to state-owned enterprises, competition by firms for skilled and semi-skilled labor following emergence of labor markets and the end of state monopoly on labor allocation, and increased emphasis on merit-based reward systems in firms. Analyses of survey data from urban China show how these three causal mechanisms stemming from the transition to a market economy contribute to new patterns of earnings differentiation that increase income returns to human capital and private-sector entrepreneurship.

We examine the mechanisms through which firm capabilities moderate the impact of institutional forces upon firms’ adoption of environmental management strategy (EMS). Viewing the limitations of the institutional perspective in explaining the heterogeneity in firms’ EMS, we suggest that an important source of variation is the idiosyncratic capabilities of the firm in acquiring and allocating resources. Based on the strategic response theme of institutional theory and the resource-based view, we argue that the influence of institutional forces on EMS is contingent on the presence of environmental orientation and innovation capability. Using data collected from China, we test these notions. Our empirical results suggest that both environmental orientation and innovation capability positively moderate the effect of institutional forces on firm's EMS. By demonstrating how institutional forces and firm capabilities interact with each other, we enhance our understanding of how firms succeed in developing EMS.