Opportunities and challenges for academic returnees in China

A growing number of Western-educated management PhD graduates are starting their academic career in Chinese business schools. While opportunities are abundant for these returnees, they also face the choice between developing internationally transferable assets and building locally embedded competences. Some possible solutions are discussed, at both personal and institutional levels.

The adolescence of Asia management research: <Emphasis Type="Italic">APJM</Emphasis>, 1997–2006

In this article we reflect on the adolescent years of Asia management research published in the Asia Pacific Journal of Management (APJM) by reviewing work published in the past 10 years (1997–2006). We report that during the last decade, APJM has published 223 research articles, written by 373 different authors, who are affiliated with 203 different institutions. Our discussion of the future of Asia management research is guided by Kuhn’s (Kuhn, T. S. The structure of scientific revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962) perspective on the nonlinear progression of science. We argue that as a growing community, Asia management research is finding its “identity” and establishing its presence in the larger worldwide management research community. Following our analysis, we conclude that the growth of Asia management research—as captured by APJM publications—throughout its “adolescent” years has set forth a challenging and exciting path for the future. All authors contributed equally. We thank Mike Peng (Editor-in-Chief) for his encouragement and advice. This work was completed when Yu-Shan Su was a Fulbright visiting scholar at the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD). She thanks the Fulbright Association and the Taiwanese Ministry of Education for partially funding this work.

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Venture capital in China: Past,present, and future

This article reviews the literature on venture capital in China and examines where China’s venture capital industry has been and where it is likely to go in the future. Since the 1980s, venture capital in China has grown steadily alongside the robust national economy. The future is likely to offer even greater opportunities, as entrepreneurs are encouraged and property rights improve. However, there will also be a period of transition as the market continues to mature and as new legal structures and commercial arrangements emerge. Venture capital in China has many interesting differences from that in Western countries. The venture capital industry is shaped by the institutional context and China is no exception to this. This article also examines some specific differences between the system in China and that of the United States. Future prospects for venture capital are also appraised as China continues its transition to a market economy.

Adoption of professional management in Chinese family business: A multilevel analysis of impetuses and impediments

Building upon the market, institutional, and cultural perspectives, this paper identifies the major impetuses and impediments that affect the professionalization of Chinese family business at the environment, firm, and owner levels. Our integrative framework projects that whether a family business owner will adopt professional managers is largely determined by the relative strength of impetus factors and impediment factors. We then discuss the possible governance choices under different configuration of impetuses and impediments. This theoretical framework is expected to help set the momentum for further conceptual exploration and empirical study in this area.

In search of confidence: Context,collaboration, and constraints

The development of any field of scientific inquiry involves global scholarly conversations. While we agree with Meyer’s (2006) key tenets, we extend his discussion of Asia management scholars’ need for self-confidence by exploring the role of context, collaboration, and constraints in global scholarly discourse. In particular, we highlight the need for consideration of multi-level context, the development of theories that are good for local stakeholders’ management practice and technology-facilitated and super-institutional collaboration. We illustrate our arguments for the development, legitimization, and institutionalization of Asia Pacific management research with examples from management and other scholarly disciplines in Australia, China, Europe, and North America.

Research rankings of Asia Pacific business schools: Global versus local knowledge strategies

Despite the increasing recognition of the importance of the research mission of universities, no previous work has investigated the research productivity and research strategies of Asia Pacific business schools. This article fills this important gap by conducting the first study to rank the publication productivity of 130 Asia Pacific business schools. Drawing on data from the UTD Top 100 Business School Research Rankings™ and several additional sources, we rank Asia Pacific business schools’ research productivity in three areas: (1) twenty-four leading business journals, (2) seven top management journals, and (3) five Asia Pacific management journals. We also extend this analysis by documenting the distinct publishing strategies of various Asia Pacific business schools—global, local, or both.

Knowledge management and innovation strategy in the Asia Pacific: Toward an institution-based view

The emergence of knowledge-intensive society has changed the nature of business competition. Knowledge management becomes an important managerial task and formulating a sound innovation strategy is an integral part of strategic management. Adopting an institution-based view, this article argues that the institutional environment in the Asia Pacific region plays a multi-faceted role behind firms’ knowledge management and innovation strategy. Specifically, institutions impose rules for legitimacy, serve as a source of knowledge, and allocate incentives and resources for innovation. We believe that future research drawing on the institution-based view has significant potential to advance our understanding of knowledge management and innovation strategy in Asia Pacific firms.

Self-confidence does not come isolated from the environment

A smart way to build confidence is to gain the most success within the constraints of the environment. Trying things that the infrastructures fail to support may bring more frustration than confidence. Out of this consideration, Asian researchers might have concentrated on “original equipment manufacturing” type of research—exporting their research to the larger, Western market—in the past due to limited resources and colonial governance. However, with the change in environment, Asian researchers have to undo their old beliefs and participate in building infrastructures that facilitate original and advanced research in management.

Asian contexts and the search for general theory in management research: A rejoinder

“Asian Management Research Needs More Self-confidence” (Meyer, 2006) generated a surprisingly extended and diverse set of responses from Asia and beyond. In this rejoinder, I draw together a few lines of arguments that have emerged in that debate with the aim of moving the debate—and thus Asian management research agendas—forward. In particular, I argue that context is a crucial variable to explain management behavior, yet for practical reasons, it has been neglected in research published in top journals. Thus, I challenge management scholars in Asia and beyond to devise new research strategies to enhance our understanding of the contextual boundaries of our knowledge.

Japanese horizontal keiretsu and the performance implications of membership

Our study investigates the effect of Japanese horizontal keiretsu group membership on firm risk and return. Like prior studies, our results show that horizontal keiretsu membership has a negative effect on firm profitability. However, we find that horizontal keiretsu networks are likely to increase the gap between targeted and realized returns, which we call the outcome–aspiration gap. Moreover, in contrast to prior studies, our results indicate that keiretsu membership does not enable member firms to reduce risks by smoothing profitability. Instead, our findings provide evidence that is counter to the conventional notion that Japanese horizontal keiretsu allows their member firms to trade off profits for reduced risk.

China’s business network structure during institutional transitions

This study adopted a structural approach to examine the formation and characteristics of Chinese business networks via interlocking directorates during a stage in China’s institutional transitions. Analyses of the network structures of 949 listed companies revealed that: (1) Chinese business networks were smaller in scale and lower in density than their Western counterparts; (2) no nationwide network with a dominant center existed; (3) interlock occurred mainly in the form of smaller business groups which tended to be regionally fragmented; (4) ties were more prevalent among industrial peers than with financial institutions; and (5) government ownership was predominant. These findings therefore deepen our understanding about the pattern and extent of business interlock in China. Not only do these findings provide substantive implications to the notion and dimensionality of guanxi, but they also offer inspiration to managers and policy makers by illuminating key characteristics of network structure. Laying these foundations shall pave the way for future research in the structure of Chinese business networks.

The first decade of the Asia Academy of Management

This paper briefly reviews the history of the Asia Academy of Management, the official sponsor of the Asia Pacific Journal of Management. It is suggested that establishing the Asia Academy of Management is a response to the new challenges of the academic institutional environment, both in Asia and in the mainstream management research community. Judging from the achievements in terms of reputation in the region, publication citations, school rankings, and internal organizational development, this new venture has added significant value to the global academic community. The challenges facing the Asia Academy, however, include the need to attract more interested parties to actively involve in its activities, more genuine cooperation among Asian and non-Asian institutions, and a need to affirm the contributions of Asian management studies.

A stage-dependent model of resource utilization,strategic flexibility,and implications for performance over time: Empirical evidence from a transitional environment

It has long been recognized that there is a tradeoff between exploration and exploitation. How organizations utilize resources across time and space will affect firm survival and growth. In this paper, we examine resource utilization and performance implications over time in an environment undergoing fundamental institutional transformation. Based on a large archive of Chinese government data from 1988, 1992, and 1996, the study finds that (1) the impact of resource utilization is contingent on the degree to which different resources are committed to factors of production, (2) the impact is curvilinear and only valid within an “optimal” range, and (3) the performance implications change over time. As firms enter later stages of the transitional process, efficiency becomes less important as they shift their strategic focus from exploitation to exploration, which requires more flexibility. These findings have significant bearing on the issue of upgrading technological competitiveness in China as the country becomes increasingly integrated in the global economy. Such insights may also have implications for other emerging economies in Asia.

Business groups and market failures: A focus on vertical and horizontal strategies

Drawing from transaction cost economics and strategic management, this paper develops a series of propositions that link market failure with corporate strategy. In doing so, the paper focuses on both vertical and horizontal strategies as strategic approaches that could be used to address different types of market failure. The significant contribution of the paper lies in its deconstruction of the various types of market failure and developing a theoretically grounded set of propositions that identifies appropriate corporate strategic responses that can be used to ameliorate the negative consequences of each type of failure. In doing so it also explores the evolution of business groups and the viability of strategic choices that groups are likely to make as they navigate the emerging market terrain.

Asian management research needs broader initiatives and focused incentives

Meyer (2006) has offered an interesting array of initiatives that scholars in Asia can pursue in enhancing their contribution to the body of management knowledge. While the objective of his agenda seems timely and relevant, it raises some fundamental questions that encompass issues such as the scope of research questions that Asian researchers could pursue, the debate over rigor versus relevance, and the role of established top tier journals in furthering the Asian management research agenda. This paper discusses some of these issues in the spirit of fostering a continued dialog on the important questions that Meyer raises.

Change and continuity in Japanese corporate governance

Previous studies on Japanese corporate governance were largely based on the agency theory framework, and can be seen as attempts to understand the unique monitoring mechanisms in the Japanese context. This paper briefly reviews prior research and then discusses the recent changes in the environment that have been affecting Japanese corporate governance. Our central argument is that there is both change and continuity in Japanese Corporate Governance. We also present emerging research from an institutional theory perspective. In this line of research, corporate governance is treated as part of a nation’s institutional framework and hence, researchers need to understand unique institutional arrangements that affect corporate governance practices and their change or continuity.

Varieties of export-oriented entrepreneurship in Asia

This paper explores differences in the proportion of export-oriented early-stage entrepreneurial activity in 12 Asian countries. Drawing on varieties of capitalism theory, we find that Asian countries with high quality institutions are more likely to have higher proportions of young export-oriented firms. However, analysis on a 51 country data set indicates that Asian countries have significantly fewer young export-oriented firms than do non-Asian countries. Furthermore, the multi-country study reveals that countries with higher proportions of export-oriented entrepreneurial activity tend to have flexible industrial relations, high quality vocational training, and confrontational labor–employer relations, however the proportion of export-oriented new ventures is not related to the quality of corporate governance and inter-firm relations.

Indian business groups: Evolution and transformation

Business groups are an important constituent of many emerging economies. In this paper, we focus on the evolution and transformation of Indian business groups (IBGs) over two economic eras — pre-reform era (pre 1991) and reform era (post 1991). To this end, we analyze IBG behavior during these periods, and explain the implications of such behavior on IBG value creation. Our conceptualization of IBG dynamics utilizes the perspectives of product relatedness and institutional relatedness, and undertakes a broad review of the extant literature.

Feeling trusted by business leaders in China: Antecedents and the mediating role of value congruence

This paper examines the antecedents of felt trust, an under-explored area in the trust literature. We hypothesized that subordinates’ felt trust would relate positively with their leaders’ moral leadership behaviors and negatively with autocratic leadership behaviors and demographic differences between leaders and themselves. We also hypothesized the above relationships to be mediated by the leader-member value congruence. Results supported our hypotheses that value congruence mediated between autocratic leadership behaviors and demographic differences and subordinates’ felt trust, but not moral leadership behaviors, which had direct effects on subordinates’ perception of feeling trusted. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Are strategy-performance relationships contingent on macroeconomic environments? Evidence from Japan’s textile industry

This study examines the dynamic relationships between product and international diversification, keiretsu financing, and economic performance of the listed firms in Japan’s textile industry. Panel data analysis shows that the performance effects of those strategic factors are contingent on macroeconomic environments, rather than showing consistent relationships. The potentially positive or negative effects of particular diversification strategies and keiretsu financing are neutralized in the munificent environments, as exogenous macroeconomic factors overwhelm endogenous decision-making by the management. In the scarce setting, by contrast, it is those strategic factors that influence financial outcomes. Keiretsu financing moderates the relationship between international diversification strategy and profitability positively only during times of economic scarcity.