Human Resource Systems and Ethical Climates: A Resource‐Based Perspective

We know very little about how ethical climates are built and the potential role of a firm's HR system in facilitating the development of this resource. The resource‐based view (RBV) of the firm suggests that human resource systems directly influence a firm's performance through the development of resources that are deeply woven in a firm's history and culture. How this occurs though has not been thoroughly considered in the research literature. Drawing on the theoretical insights from the resource‐based view of the firm, this article explores how HR systems can foster the development and maintenance of five types of ethical climates. In so doing, this article improves our conceptual understanding of why ethical climates may be seen as having strategic value for firms and how HR systems may influence that value. In addition, it contributes to theory by extending the domain of the resource‐based view of the firm by exploring its integration with the varied types of ethical climates. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Effects of Information Technology Capabilities on Strategic Alliances: Implications for the Resource‐Based View

This paper adopts a contingency approach to the resource‐based view (RBV) of the firm and seeks to establish boundary conditions for the value of certain information technology (IT) capabilities. We first identify inter‐organizational alliances as a specific strategy context in which IT capabilities are particularly valuable. We then consider more detailed boundary conditions that can shape the value of these capabilities within the alliance context. Our study shows that firms with better IT capabilities can derive greater value from an alliance, yet this effect also varies across different types of alliances depending on an individual alliance's characteristics. Specifically, IT capabilities are more valuable for alliances with a non‐equity governance structure, as well as those involving a high degree of interdependence between partners. We highlight the implications of our findings for opportunities to advance the RBV.     

The influence of internal and external social networks on HRM capabilities in MNC subsidiaries in China

In this study we examine the influence of involvement in internal and external social networks on HRM capabilities. We distinguish between technical and strategic HRM capabilities and focus on the capabilities of the HR department relating to four HRM practices – recruitment and selection, training and development, compensation, and performance appraisal. The study is based on data from dual respondents, general managers and HR managers, in 66 European MNC subsidiaries located in China. The results indicate that contact with other MNCs in China regarding HRM issues is positively associated with both technical and strategic HRM capabilities whereas contact with local Chinese companies does not have any significant influence on either strategic or technical HRM capabilities. Contact with MNC headquarters is positively associated with strategic HRM capabilities.     

Institutions and Foreign Subsidiary Growth in Transition Economies: The Role of Intangible Assets and Capabilities

Although transition economies experience significant institutional transformations that vary in their degree and pace, scholarly knowledge of what distinguishes more successful foreign subsidiaries from less successful ones in such environments is limited and inconsistent. We enhance the understanding of this subject by examining how variations in the institutional development of transition economies influence the usefulness of a subsidiary's intangible assets and capabilities and, in turn, their effectiveness in enhancing its growth. Prior research assumes that foreign subsidiaries that operate in any given environment are always better off when they possess strong intangible assets and capabilities. Our analysis of more than 33,000 observations in 14 transition economies challenges this view and enables us to explain why some subsidiaries grow more quickly in less‐developed institutional environments, whereas others more quickly in countries with institutions that are more developed. More specifically, we show that although a subsidiary's intangible assets enhance its growth in transition economies with stronger institutions, these effects are particularly weak or insignificant in transition countries with less developed institutional environments. Conversely, a completely different pattern emerges for subsidiary capabilities, with their marginal effects on subsidiary growth being significantly higher in countries that are institutionally less developed than in transition countries with more developed institutions.     

Corporate Entrepreneurship Activities through Strategic Alliances: A Resource‐Based Approach toward Competitive Advantage*

abstract Corporate entrepreneurship (CE) activities may significantly benefit from interfirm strategic alliances, although such benefits have not been sufficiently examined in the literature. In this paper, a resource‐based framework is presented to examine how strategic alliances offer entrepreneurial firms needed resources that may not otherwise be available. We argue that CE activities are likely to lead to resource gaps. We compare various options to fill resource gaps, and identify the pros and cons of the alliance approach. We then discuss the resource conditions that provide competitive advantage for a firm, if alliances are properly used to help implement CE. Finally, we examine how different types of alliance (e.g. joint ventures, R&D alliances, and learning alliances) facilitate various CE activities, including innovation, corporate venturing, and strategic renewal.     

The Influence of Technology Differences on Corporate Environmental Patents: A Resource‐Based Versus an Institutional View of Green Innovations

This paper proposes that both the resource‐based view and institutional theory predict a positive relationship between the number of patented environmental innovations and non‐environmental innovations held by a firm, because they both are subject to the influence of similar factors. However, while the resource‐based view predicts that technological differences between the patented environmental innovations owned by a firm and those in the industry as a whole will positively affect the firm's environmental innovations, the institutional perspective predicts a negative relationship. Our results derive from a sample of 5537 environmental patents from 59 large companies in the electrical components and equipment industry worldwide, and show a positive relationship between patented environmental and non‐environmental innovations in a firm, but a negative influence on the number of the firm's patented environmental innovations resulting from differences between the firm's environmental technologies and those generally prevalent in the industry. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Does the Natural‐Resource‐Based View of the Firm Apply in an Emerging Economy? A Survey of Foreign Invested Enterprises in China*

abstract This study explores whether enterprises operating in China benefit from the practice of the tenets of the natural‐resource‐based view of the firm (NRVF). To this end, a conceptual model is proposed that depicts the major determinants and consequences of the practice of NRVF. By and large, the survey data collected from foreign invested enterprises (FIEs) in China confirm the validity of the proposed model, and suggest that the NRVF is applicable in the world's largest and fastest‐growing emerging economy. These results remind FIEs in China of the opportunities to enhance corporate environmental and financial performance through the adoption of environmental strategies. Various regression and multi‐group analyses conducted in this study further reveal significant moderating influences of perceived environmental uncertainties, operating mode, and firm size on the process of achieving company‐wide ecological sustainability.     

基于引领视角下高职院校创业教育内涵的研究

高等学校实施创业教育试点工作以来,取得了一些研究成果和实践经验,同时也给研究高职院校创业教育内涵带来更大的空间。本文通过梳理资料、调查研究认为,我国经济和社会发展处于重要转型期,高职院校的创业教育应该紧密结合新形势下的人才战略进行一些基本理论研究,提出并界定了高职院校创业教育内涵的定义,以期引导高职院校创业教育找到更为清晰的工作目标。     

Improvisation for innovation: The contingent role of resource and structural factors in explaining innovation capability

This paper focuses on resource and structural factors to explore the relationship between organizational improvisation and innovation capability. Although the role of improvisation has attracted increasing academic attention in fast-changing environments, little is known about the conditions under which firms benefit from improvisation. This paper addresses this gap using an organizational learning perspective that explains the role of a firm's organizational structure and organizational resources for improvisation and innovation. A large-scale survey in China finds that firms vary in their levels of (I) centralization and formalization of decision making and (II) resource slack and investment irreversibility and that these factors moderate the relationship between improvisation and innovation capability in distinct ways. Consistent with our theorizing, improvisation enhances innovation capability when firms have a decentralized but formalized structure or pursue the dual goals of maximizing resource slack and minimizing investment irreversibility.     

The Research‐Practice Gap in Human Resource Management: A Cross‐Cultural Study

In this study, we examine the cross‐cultural differences in human resource (HR) managers’ beliefs in effective HR practices by surveying HR practitioners in Finland (N = 86), South Korea (N = 147), and Spain (N = 196). Similar to previous studies from the United States, the Netherlands, and Australia, there are large discrepancies between HR practitioner beliefs and research findings, particularly in the area of staffing. In addition, we find that interpersonal‐oriented aspects of HR practices tend to be more culturally bound than technical‐oriented aspects of HR practices. We interpret the differences using Hofstede's cultural dimensions (Power Distance, Individualism versus Collectivism, Masculinity versus Femininity, Long‐Term Orientation versus Short‐Term Orientation, and Uncertainty Avoidance). We discuss the overall nature of the science‐practice gap in HR management, and the implications for evidence‐based management. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

我国高职院校创业教育的新模式探索——以青岛飞洋职业技术学院为例

"创业教育"是现阶段我国的一个热门话题,也是社会发展所必需面对的问题。如何在我国建立科学完善的创业教育体系是目前各高校积极探索的重要方向。本文以所在职业技术学院为例,结合近几年来学院在创业教育方面所做的工作,进行了创业教育新模式的探索,总结出了一条适合我国职业院校创业教育发展的新思路。     

How to Green the red Dragon: A Start‐ups' Little Helper for Sustainable Development in China

This article qualitatively identifies and explains the barriers that foreign cleantech start‐ups can encounter when attempting to enter the Chinese market, as well as the possible strategies that can help overcome these barriers. We base our analysis on interviews with Chinese and foreign entrepreneurs and facilitators. To structure the analysis of such barriers, we use the components of the entrepreneurial ecosystem. We then explain the barriers using institutional theory. We demonstrate that they are caused either by the regulations in China or by the difference between Chinese and Western logics. We further recommend that cleantech entrepreneurs come prepared to China, remain flexible, associate themselves with reputable partners and take advice from those familiar with business in China. Cultural–cognitive barriers might be overcome by integrating the communities of foreign and Chinese start‐ups. Regulative barriers can be removed by the Chinese Government, but this conflicts with the logic of state control. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

知识反哺对企业技术能力提升的影响——基于开元集团的案例研究

知识反哺对企业技术能力提升的影响,是企业仿生学研究的内容之一。本文通过案例研究方法,从知识反哺的角度,对知识反哺和企业技术能力的动态关系进行研究。内容涉及知识反哺的影响因素,知识反哺的强度,知识反哺的四个发展阶段——孕育、抚养、反哺和合作,各阶段知识反哺对母公司技术能力提升的影响等。本文深入分析了开元集团子公司对母公司知识反哺的具体情况,证实了知识反哺是企业技术能力提升的重要途径,同时得到了母子公司在知识反哺中的动态演化路径。此外,本研究提出的知识反哺这一技术能力提升途径是对现有技术能力提升途径理论的一种补充。     

Place in Entrepreneurial Storytelling: A Study of Cultural Entrepreneurship in a Deprived Context

We extend the cultural entrepreneurship perspective by investigating how entrepreneurs in deprived contexts gain legitimacy by leveraging proprietary and public places in their entrepreneurial storytelling. Inspired by the sociology of place, we present a longitudinal study of ten new venture journeys over four years in Kasoa, Ghana. We identify three distinct ways places are used in entrepreneurial narratives: projective significance of place, connective significance of place, and authoritative significance of place. We show how impoverished entrepreneurs construct and communicate places in diverse ways, not only as locations, but also as material and symbolic resources that provide legitimacy for their venturing activities. Drawing from our findings, we generate a model of place-based cultural entrepreneurship and elaborate place as a central resource in cultural entrepreneurship and new venture creation in deprived contexts.     

Green Product Innovation in Manufacturing Firms: A Sustainability‐Oriented Dynamic Capability Perspective

Despite environmental sustainability being identified as one of the key drivers of innovation, extant literature lacks a theoretically sound and empirically testable framework that can provide specific insights into green product innovation from a capability perspective. This study develops a theoretical framework from a sustainability‐oriented dynamic capability (SODC) perspective. We conceive SODCs as consisting of three underlying processes (external resource integration, internal resource integration, and resource building and reconfiguration) that influence the change/renewal of sustainability‐oriented ordinary capabilities (SOOCs) (green innovation capability and eco‐design capability). This study answers two key questions: which SODCs are needed to develop green innovation and eco‐design capabilities? Which of these capabilities lead to better market performance of green products? We test a structural model linking SODCs to market performance in 189 Italian manufacturing firms. First, we find that the nature of the SODC–performance link (direct or indirect) depends on the SODC type. Specifically, resource building and reconfiguration is the only SODC with a direct effect on market performance. Second, all three types of SODC affect the eco‐design capability, which mediates the link between SODCs and market performance. Third, we find that external resource integration is the only SODC affecting the green innovation capability, which mediates the link between external resource integration and market performance. Resource building and reconfiguration is the SODC with the overall (direct and indirect) highest impact on market performance. This study, among the first to consider capabilities for green product innovation under a dynamic capability perspective, provides implications for scholars, managers and policy makers. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

The Inside Track: On the Important (But Neglected) Role of Customers in the Resource‐Based View of Strategy and Firm Growth*

abstract This paper argues for the important role of customers as a source of competitive advantage and firm growth, an issue which has been largely neglected in the resource‐based view of the firm. It conceptualizes Penrose's (1959 ) notion of an ‘inside track’ and illustrates how in‐depth knowledge about established customers combines with joint problem‐solving activities and the rapid assimilation of new and previously unexploited skills and resources. It is suggested that the inside track represents a distinct and perhaps underestimated way of generating rents and securing long‐term growth. This also implies that the sources of sustainable competitive advantage in important respects can be sought in idiosyncratic interfirm relationships rather than within the firm itself.     

‘One‐Man Handled’: Fragmented Power and Political Entrepreneurship in Globalizing Mumbai

This article considers the fractured nature of state power in contemporary Mumbai. Based on a case study of the ongoing Dharavi Redevelopment Project, a 2‐billion US dollar initiative to redevelop Mumbai's most infamous ‘slum’ settlement as a mixed‐use, mixed‐income township, it details the new state strategies emerging to support urban development efforts in India today. Identifying the structural weaknesses that have traditionally hindered development planning in Mumbai, it describes how a private developer, acting as a political entrepreneur, has worked to consolidate the authority and resources necessary to overcome these institutional gaps and structural weaknesses. Situating the analysis in theories of state restructuring, this case sheds light on how the local Indian state is responding to the pressures associated with neoliberal globalization and competitive urbanism. While a growing literature in this area has offered important insights into emerging configurations of power, it remains overly focused on the role of NGOs in these efforts, failing to provide an adequate analysis of alliances between the state and other private actors. This article attempts to address this gap with an in‐depth examination of the political entrepreneur as a site of institutionalized, but ultimately incomplete, power in globalizing Mumbai.     

国际创业背景下企业家精神的适应性调整——以温州企业为例

企业家精神是企业成长和经济增长的重要因素。本文认为企业家精神是一个层次模型,只有通过综合特质、愿景、胜任力和文化网络这四个层面才能揭示企业家精神的全貌,通过对温州企业案例的分析,检验了该模型的不同层次在国际创业背景下分别应进行怎样的适应性调整。最后,本文指出了该研究可能存在的问题,并对后续研究进行了展望。     

Understanding Income Inequality in China: A Multi-Angle Perspective

Economic reforms have brought about spectacular growth and vast improvements of people’s living standards in China since 1978. In the meantime, unbalanced regional growth and income inequality have become two important concerns of future development. Most available studies on income distribution have either focused on the rural population or on the urban citizens. This paper stresses the importance of adopting a multi-angle approach to fully understand income inequality in China. We first use some top-down information to form a general picture of inequality for the whole country, and then use some bottom-up household survey data to explain in detail the development of inequality over time regarding rural/urban inequality, rural inequality, urban inequality and inter-regional inequality, the relative importance of different income sources to overall inequality. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

跨国公司在中国选择第三方物流服务商的影响因素——基于资源基础理论的视角

探究跨国公司选择第三方物流服务商的影响因素,对于理解双方合作成功的基础以及中国物流企业需增强哪些能力以成为其第三方物流服务商具有重要价值.从资源基础理论视角出发,在现有理论文献和问卷调查的基础上提出假设,通过问卷统计分析进行检验,明确跨国公司选择第三方物流服务商的影响因素.结果显示第三方物流服务商的物流能力、企业声誉、IT能力、有形资产以及二者间物流资源的互补性5个影响因素通过检验,而其中第三方物流服务商的物流能力和二者间物流资源的互补性影响目前更为突出.