The economic and market reforms in China have given rise to firms with three distinct types of ownership: state-owned enterprises, private domestic enterprises, and foreign-invested firms. The three studies reported in this paper addressed the questions of whether organizational culture varies among firms with different ownership structures and whether it relates to firm performance or employee attitudes as it has been observed in US firms. The first study employed an inductive approach to identify culture dimensions and found five common dimensions across these different types of firms. In the second study, we derived an empirical taxonomy of four organizational culture types involving different configurations of the five organizational culture dimensions, and found a systematic relationship between these culture types and a measure of perceived firm performance. The third study confirmed the relationship between organizational culture types and middle manager attitudes. Suggestions are offered for future research building on the organizational culture dimensions and culture types introduced in these studies.

While China continues to develop capitalistic capacities, the party-state has increasingly tightened control of the economy and synchronized political and economic stratification – a tendency towards a centrally managed capitalism. Under centrally managed capitalism, the party-state commands the economy by controlling personnel, organizations, and capital in both political and economic arenas. At the same time, it delegates fiscal and administrative authorities to multiple and diversely formed corporations to compete in the marketplace. I further speculate on future ideological alternatives: a western-style democracy, a mature-stage socialism, or an enlightened authoritarianism – Xiaokang (小康 moderate prosperity or well-off society). After eliminating or casting doubt on the former two, I argue that a two-step transformation towards Xiaokang is under way. In the first step, the party-state leadership gradually decouples its position from Marxist ideology of communism and socialism, and moves towards the maintenance of economic growth and social order. The second step then allows the legitimacy of party rule to be based on indigenous Confucian ideology that emphasizes enlightened leaders, moral institutions, and social relations (i.e., Xiaokang). Finally, I explore the feasibility and paths towards an indigenous ideology of democracy (Datong: 大同 – universal harmony).

Social exchange theory has provided the dominant basis for understanding exchange relationships in organizational settings. Despite its predominance within the management field, there are a number of unaddressed issues. This special issue seeks to further social exchange research in work settings. We differentiate social from economic exchange and highlight the moderating role of cultural and individual differences in explaining the outcomes associated with social exchange relationships. We introduce the ideas of content, process, and mixed models of exchange to reflect the different emphases given to the amount and type of resources exchanged, the quality of the relationship, and a combination of both. The five papers in this special issue illustrate these models. We discuss the applicability of social exchange theory across cultural contexts and present suggestions for future research.

This article reports a detailed analysis of 138 peer-reviewed articles in 41 journals published in the last 12 years (2001-2012) that focus on Chinese outward foreign direct investment from a theoretical advancement perspective. It assesses how the topic has been explored both conceptually and empirically and identifies the substantive contributions to the literature using a thematic analysis. The article argues that research on the international expansion of Chinese multinational corporations offers a unique opportunity to extend and develop extant theorizing in four primary research streams: the latecomer perspective; Chinese state and government influences; the dynamics of firms and institutions; and the liability of foreignness. Building on the results of this analysis, the article offers five recommendations as promising ways to open up theoretical inquiry: (1) cross-fertilization among the four research streams; (2) integration of resource- and institution-based theories with other theoretical lenses; (3) research on the process dimensions using a longitudinal approach; (4) adoption of multi-levels of analysis; and (5) consideration of the wider emerging market literature.

Intending to clear space for rigorous integrative research bridging theory and research across East and West, we highlight four conclusions from exceptional data on the networks around Chinese entrepreneurs: (1) The broker networks associated with business success in the West are also associated with success in China; (2) The trust correlates of closed networks in the West are similarly correlated in China; (3) History and trust proven in events emerge as especially important to the Chinese entrepreneurs; (4) High-quality network data on Chinese business leaders are a practical reality. We use the results to define a network perspective on guanxi ties that can be common ground for integrating results across East and West, and guide future research on the role networks play in Chinese business.

In this work, we examine and integrate the research streams on learningbehaviours of both local firms and foreign entrants in emerging markets. Wepropose that local firms and foreign entrants differ in the types oflearning pursued and in the learning processes used. While emerging marketfirms engage in a significant amount of exploratory learning, they alsoattempt to exploit the newly gained knowledge in their current markets.Furthermore, foreign entrants engage in exploitative learning as expectedbut also must participate in exploratory learning to acquire knowledge ofculture, institutional norms, and important social relationships. While muchof the learning occurs through cooperative processes with both partners,they also each engage in experiential learning. We argue that emergingmarkets also differ; firms in the more mature emerging markets seekdifferent types of learning and the learning processes used vary compared tothose in less mature emerging markets. Our research suggests that emergingmarkets represent learning laboratories and provide a base to catalysefuture research.

This Editors' Forum – ‘Creativity East and West’ – presents five papers on the question of cultural differences in creativity from the perspective of different research literatures, followed by two integrative commentaries. The literatures represented include historiometric, laboratory, and organizational studies. Investigation of cultural influences through country comparisons and priming manipulations, focusing on how people perform creatively and how they assess creativity. This introduction notes parallels in the findings across these research perspectives, suggesting some cultural universals in creativity and some systematic differences. Many differences can be explained in terms of the model that creativity means a solution that is both novel/original and useful/appropriate, yet that Western social norms prioritize novelty whereas Eastern norms prioritize usefulness – an account which predicts cultural differences would arise in contexts that activate social norms. The commentaries elaborate this argument in terms of processes – at the micro cognitive level and at the macro societal level – through which creativity occurs.

The organizations research community is a multidisciplinary, multinational and multilingual association of scholars with all the paraphernalia of international exchange. Nevertheless, it is a community that is organized in a geographically fragmented way, with linguistic, national, cultural and regional boundaries separating relatively autonomous scholarly communities. Although this fragmentation limits the integration of organization studies, it serves an adaptive role in making the resistance of deviant ideas to the homogenizing tendencies of dominant scholarly groups easier. The effective use of such differentiation, however, requires linkages among the fragmented parts of the field. We consider some ways of thinking about how research boundaries can be both sustained and violated, with particular attention to the emergence of Chinese scholarship in the study of organizations.

We investigated the relationship between the national cultural value ofpower distance and collective silence as well as the role of voice-inducingmechanisms in breaking the organizational silence. Using data from 421organizational units of a multinational company in 24 countries, we foundthat both formalized employee involvement and a participative climateencouraged employees to voice their opinions in countries with a small powerdistance culture. In large power distance cultures, formalized employeeinvolvement is related to employee voices only under a strong perceivedparticipative climate.

This paper expands recent appeals for more context sensitive organizational research to include organizational theory. It does this by systematically examining the interface between theory and context, characterized herein as contextualizing theory (theories in context) and theorizing about context (theories of context). The results of this analysis challenge recent criticisms of Chinese organizational scholarship for relying too much on Western theory. As an alternative to discontinuing the practice of cross-context theory borrowing, ways of making this borrowing more context sensitive are explored. The use of context effects to explain organizational phenomena, as well as their essential contribution to all forms of cross-context scholarship, is also examined. In addition, specific suggestions are offered for overcoming the obstacles facing scholars engaged in cross-context theorizing, especially scholars in new research contexts interested in using and improving ‘mainstream’ theory.

Integrating the typologies of trust dimensions and trust ideal-types with the new typologies of trust forms and trust bases, I propose a geocentric framework of trust in general and of organizational trust in particular. The typology of trust forms is built on the dimension of spatial strength to address the content of trust building from weak trust to strong trust and on the dimension of temporal stage to address the process of trust building from initial trust to mature trust. The typology of trust bases is built on the dimension of trust sources to address the bases of trust building from depersonalized sources to personalized sources and on the dimension of trust domains to address the bases of trust building from dyad domains to network domains. Together with its three pillars (trust-building mechanisms, leadership and trust-as-choice), the central theme of trust building connects all four trust typologies toward a geocentric framework that integrates and transcends the cultural values of the East and the West. This framework bears a special implication for theorizing about transaction cost and transaction value as a duality for interorganizational alliance.

This study identifies the influencing processes that underlie the effect of the three paternalistic leadership dimensions on subordinates' work performance/ organizational citizenship behaviours. The results, based on data collected from private firms in China, showed that perceived interactional justice mediated the effects of moral leadership and benevolent leadership on trust-in-supervisor. However, perceived interactional justice did not mediate the relationship between authoritarian leadership and trust-in-supervisor. In addition, trust-in-supervisor was found to be positively associated with work performance and organizational citizenship behaviours. Cultural and practical implications and future research directions are also discussed.

Guanxi networks are critical for achieving entrepreneurial success in China. Informed by the literatures on network-based entrepreneurship and guanxi, this study used a multiple-case method to examine the development of Chinese entrepreneurs' guanxi networks in the entrepreneurial process. Data induction based on within- and cross-case analyses of six entrepreneurial firms revealed three major findings. First, guanxi network dynamics in terms of network structure, governance mechanisms, and network content change systematically across the stages of the entrepreneurship process. Second, the usefulness of guanxi ties (such as family, business associates, or government officials) is contingent on the stage of the entrepreneurial process as well as on industrial-level factors. Third, in knowledge-intensive industries, cultivating and maintaining guanxi can be achieved through knowledge and information exchange rather than traditional gift-giving or favours. The overall conclusion is that guanxi is still of paramount importance for Chinese entrepreneurs in the midst of China's transformation from a centrally planned to a socialist market economy. We propose a stage model of guanxi network development in the entrepreneurial process and discuss implications for future research.

The assumption of strategy approaches like the resource based view is that, despite environmental constraints, ample room remains for organizations to differentiate on the basis of organizational culture (together with related human resource practices) to achieve sustained competitive advantage. In contrast, other perspectives assume that management practice and organizational culture mirror, or are constrained by, national culture. To the degree that such a constraint exists, within-country variance in culture should be small and between-country variance large. In statistical terms, the first question is: what is the magnitude of the effect size for country? The larger the effect, the more likely it is a constraint. Second, what portion of the country effect size is due to differences in national culture? My review finds that most of the variance in organizational cultures is not explained by country; of the variance that is explained by country, only a minority is due to national culture differences. As such, there may be more room for organizational differentiation than typically recognized. Third, under what circumstances will country and national culture effects be larger or smaller? I present a model suggesting more room for differentiation in countries having greater individual level variance in cultural values and related variables.

In this paper, I accept Whetten's (2009) view that it is necessary to investigate Chinese management in a way that takes account of its context in order to assess the extent to which its features are context-specific or context-bounded. The first requirement, therefore, is to develop a way of conceptualising and measuring that context. A framework articulating material, ideational and institutional contextual features is offered to that end. Second, I argue that both ‘outside in’ and ‘inside out’ approaches to the study of Chinese management require comparison between China and other countries. Even a theory that claims uniqueness for China needs to have that claim tested through external comparison. We, therefore, have to employ a methodology that allows for valid comparisons between context and management in China and other countries. This paper focuses on these two issues of context and methodology with reference to comparative research. It examines them in turn and closes by arguing that the choice Barney and Zhang (2009) pose – between a Chinese theory of management and a theory of Chinese management – needs to be reframed within a more dynamic evolutionary perspective.

China's state-guided economic miracle has revitalized a long-standing and unsettled debate about the role of government in transformative economic development. In a firm-level study of corporate governance we examine whether direct state involvement actually makes a positive contribution to the economic performance of newly incorporated firms in China's urban economy. We show that direct intervention into the governance of firms is likely to yield negative economic effects at the firm level. We infer from our findings that it must be other types of government intervention external to the firm that explain the success of China's developmental state in promoting rapid economic growth.

In this paper, we theoretically and empirically investigate factors that contribute to product innovation by firms in emerging markets. Combining the innovation literature with the latecomer literature on ‘catch-up’ strategies of firms in newly industrialized economies, we posit that access to foreign knowledge is essential for fostering product innovation. In particular, we investigate how innovation clusters formed by inward foreign direct investments in an emerging market and export activities of a firm are effective channels for acquiring foreign knowledge. We also suggest firms that invest in research and development and marketing activities benefit further from access to foreign knowledge due to increased absorptive capacity. Empirically, we employ information on over 160,000 indigenous manufacturing firms in China in 2005–2006. We find strong empirical support for our theoretical framework and conclude by discussing the implications for both theory and managerial practice.

This article presents a composition-based view (CBV), which explicates the growth of enterprises that compete and develop without the benefit of resource advantages, core technology, or market power. The CBV emphasizes how ordinary firms with ordinary resources may generate extraordinary results through their creative use of open resources and unique integrating capabilities, resulting in an enhanced speed and a price-value ratio that are well suited to large numbers of mass market consumers. In addition to defining the CBV, this article explains the key elements of composition-based strategy and the distinctive processes of composition. Although CBV logic can apply to any firm endeavoring to catch up with better endowed competitors, it aligns well with the case of emerging economy enterprises (EEEs), and Chinese ones in particular. Nonetheless, the advantages of adopting composition-based strategy are temporary in nature and will decline over time, especially after the firm passes the imitative or catch-up stage. We also propose an agenda for future research.

This study presents a 12-year (1989-2001) longitudinal comparison of managerial values systems in China, Hong Kong, and the U.S. Using hierarchical cluster analysis, we test the validity of the three competing perspectives - convergence, divergence, and crossvergence - on values system evolution in these three societies. We use the sociocultural influence and business ideology influence typology as the foundation for developing our hypotheses. Additionally, we assess the contribution of the specific values within the values system to the overall system values findings. Our data most strongly support the multicultural crossvergence perspective. During a time period of stability in the U.S. and substantial change in both Hong Kong and China, the values of Hong Kong and China became more similar, while the values of these two Greater China societies became more different from those of the U.S.

In this paper, I examine the structural positions in two different types ofnetworks and their relationship to trust. I propose two types of trust:particularistic which is trust in specific other individuals and generaltrust in colleagues and the organization as a whole. The findings suggestthat both centrality in the friendship network and the go-between positionin advice networks are related to particularistic trust towards the otherindividuals in the networks. Particularistic trust, in turn, is associatedwith the two kinds of general trust. I introduce the Chinese concept of pao to explain the Chinese dynamic of trust formation ininterpersonal networks.