The need to innovate is relevant to many firms around the globe and is particularly pressing for those in emerging markets. They face global competition, are under-resourced, and suffer from weaker institutional support. It is suggested that to innovate successfully in this context, indigenous firms would benefit from focusing on managing their current knowledge base more efficiently. We know little about how knowledge management works outside developed economies and which knowledge governance mechanisms have more influence than others in the context of emerging economies. To address this gap, we explore how context may matter for the use of knowledge governance mechanisms and their effect on innovation performance in Brazilian firms. Using the survey data of 109 firms, structural equation modelling, and cluster analysis, our findings suggest that the joint application of knowledge-focused rewards, organizational design, and information and communication technologies that support knowledge processes is critical for boosting innovation performance. We discuss how the peculiarities of the Brazilian context may shape these findings. Our article contributes to the knowledge management and innovation literature by demonstrating that the joint effects of bundles of knowledge governance mechanisms and contextual variables should be explored in order to understand their impact on organizational outcomes.

Africa is an increasingly important business context, yet we still know little about it. We review the challenges and opportunities that firms in Africa face and propose that these can serve as the basis for extending current theories and models of the firm. We do so by challenging some of the implicit assumptions and stereotypes on firms in Africa and by proposing three avenues for extending theories. One is taking the extreme conditions of some Africa countries and using them as a laboratory for modifying current theories and models of the firm, as we illustrate in the case of institutional theory and the resource-based view. A second one is identifying new themes that arise from analyzing firms in Africa and their contexts of operation, and we discuss four themes: migrating multinationals and the meaning of home country, diaspora networks within and across countries, a recasting of cultural and institutional distance, and new hybrid organizational forms. A third one is developing new theories based on alternative paradigms of social relationships that have emerged in Africa that differ from those underpinning existing theories of the firm, such as kgotla and its view of community-based relationships or ubuntu and its humanizing view of relationships.

This paper argues that it is crucial to take account of both home and host country contexts in order, adequately, to understand their implications for Chinese enterprises investing into foreign countries. This calls for an analysis that is sensitive to both home and host country contexts, and that takes into account how the institutions and political systems in those contexts establish institutional and resource capital needs for the overseas-investing firm. We discuss and illustrate three different combinations of Chinese and host country characteristics, and the firm-level learning and adaptation required in the light of the relevant capitals likely to be available to Chinese firms. The analysis draws upon insights from resource-based, institutional, and political perspectives. While it is developed with specific reference to China, we also suggest that this form of analysis can be applied more generally to the implementation of outward foreign direct investment from any country.

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.

In this paper we introduce the concept of ’polycontextuality,’ which refers to multiple and qualitatively different contexts embedded within one another. We distinguish polycontextuality from the singularly contextual types of description typically provided by social scientists, and use the case of China to elucidate polycontextual phenomena. Polycontextuality can include verbal- and non-verbal nuances whose understanding is rooted in local, cognitive, emotional and even spiritual references -most of which cannot be easily observed or historically studied. For this reason we recommend the polycontexual sensitive research method to supplement the scientific deductive research typically designed to study observable phenomena based on a singular context (e.g. verbal) that are controllable by the researcher's stimuli and/or measures. Actions for increasing scholars’ polycontextual sensitivity are suggested, and guidelines for the scholar interested in doing high quality indigenous research are offered, using the case of China for illustrative purposes.

This study contributes to strategic human resource management (HRM) research by offering a contextualized model of HRM effectiveness. Building on HR attribution theory, we propose that the high commitment work system will be more effective in a context when: (i) employees are conditioned to trust employers and (ii) regulatory institutions are less restrictive, giving management more autonomy in human resource decisions. In such contexts, we argue that employees are more inclined to view the high commitment work system as an expression of the employer's genuine concern for employees. Hence, employees are more likely to reciprocate with high commitment. We find our contextualized HRM effectiveness model particularly useful in understanding HRM – firm performance relations in China where business environments are currently under transformation on both trust and regulations.

We use the parable of the blind men and the elephant to suggest that Barney and Zhang (2009) and Whetten (2009) analogously touch on only a part of the Chinese management research puzzle. Their analyses remind us of many attempts at anchoring the research purpose – etic versus emic approaches, exploration versus exploitation approaches, rigor versus relevance scenarios – touched on by the many commentators in this issue. We suggest researchers first answer the ‘purpose’ questions before embarking on the research design. The research design should fit the purpose of the knowledge, which is either to improve the performance of Chinese organizations (meeting the relevance criterion) or to replicate, extend or refine a theory developed in the US (meeting the rigour criterion). We believe the strength of applied management research allows us to create knowledge that can meet the criteria of both rigour and relevance. We support the use of academic international research teams and dialectic debate as tools to move the field of Chinese management research forward.