Xiao-Ping's invitation brings back many wonderful memories associated with the MOR community since its inception, so I am grateful to have this occasion to share these memories with you. My relationship with MOR is connected through a number of colleagues and friends and a series of events.
I was trained in the sociology discipline of organizational sociology. But I was not connected with research activities by colleagues in business schools until 2004–2005 when I was invited to work in the Department of Management in the Business School of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). During that period, I had intensive and exciting interactions with the organizational research community in the business school environment.
It was during my stay at HKUST when MOR was formally launched, where Professor Anne Tsui played a central role in the founding of the journal. I recall receiving Anne's email to a group of scholars with the idea of establishing a journal as the official journal of the IACMR, and soliciting ideas about the name of that journal. Shortly thereafter, and after consultation and discussion, Management and Organization Review was born. I was fortunate to witness the initial stage of MOR's founding and development.
Since then, I have been involved in a series of events with the IACMR community, attending its biennial conferences, MOR editorial meetings, and various workshops for graduate students and junior faculty members in Beijing, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Tianjin, etc. I got to know many scholars in this process and have kept warm friendships and collegial relationships with many through these activities.
I have continued my relationship with MOR and the IACMR since I left HKUST. When I moved to Stanford in 2006, my mentor James March was in close contact with the IACMR and MOR, as a result of Anne Tsui's great effort to draw Jim into MOR. I recall that Jim told me about his piece on academic parochialism in the American organization research community that he contributed to MOR, a theme that Jim had discussed with us on various occasions. I also recall that Jim organized workshops or discussion sessions at Stanford for Chinese scholars associated with the IACMR during those years, and I was asked to join the seminars several times. Even in later years, MOR was a recurrent theme between Jim and I whenever I visited him, as scholars from China and associated with MOR visited him or contacted him via email or long-distance phone conversations.
My ties with MOR were reinforced again when I received an email from Arie Lewin, who invited me onto the MOR editorial board as a senior editor for two years. Arie and I were former colleagues at Duke and were introduced to each other through Jim March. The two years working on MOR provided opportunities for me to get to know the MOR editorial processes as well as colleagues actively involved in contributing to our scholarly community. This occasion also gave me more chances to sit down with Arie, often accompanied by delicious meals.
When Xiao-Ping Chen became the editor of MOR, she gently pushed me to get more involved in discussions about MOR special issues, in reviewing manuscripts and proposals, and in contributing to a perspective essay for MOR.
I am also grateful that MOR has published several pieces of my own research. MOR is one academic journal in organization research in English that you don't have to agonize over how to justify why you study China and Chinese organizations when you submit your manuscript. I am also honored to have received the 2023 MOR Best Paper Award for Theory of Chinese Management. Over time, we all came to recognize the tremendous contribution that MOR has made in sustaining and advancing scholarship on Chinese organizations and management and in fostering the academic community that has benefited all scholars in this field.
Let me close my reflections by expressing my gratitude to MOR, the editors Anne Tsui, Arie Lewin, and Xiao-Ping Chen, and many of you who have contributed to MOR. Over the years, MOR has connected me to this vibrant community of scholars with shared interests, my second home community, besides my sociology community. MOR helps cultivate the scholarly community on the study of Chinese organizations and management. Over the years, I witnessed the thriving community and scholarship in this field and got to know many colleagues through MOR and the IACMR. Although I became less involved in the MOR community after I returned to the sociology discipline, I still see MOR as my community, with many friends and colleagues, warm feelings and connections, and wonderful memories.
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