Financial Services are Emerging

With the rapid development of China＇s economy and the growing need for financial services, both domestic and foreign banks hope to offer the right products and expand their business. These financial products are not limited to normal deposits or loans,but also include new items,such as cash management services,trade finance and supply chain financing solutions,etc.In recent years,these new services have become more and more recognized by customers＇ as Chinese commercial banks focus on developing trade finance,supply chain financing solutions,and cash management services.     

Corporate Social Capital and Business Model Innovation： The Mediating Role of Organizational Learning

Existing studies demonstrate that corporate social capital can not only enable a firm to gain access to heterogeneous information and resources, but may also facilitate the establishment of behavioral norms, communication models and mutual-trust platforms with stakeholders in its social network. As a result, corporate social capital drives organizational changes and has the potential to boost business model innovation. This paper recognizes organizational learning as a mediating mechanism that transforms corporate social capital into business model innovation. Using survey data collected from 164 Chinese firms, we tested the relationship between corporate social capital and business model innovation, as well as the mediating effect of organizational learning. Our findings clearly show how corporate social capital flows through organizational leaming efforts to business model innovation.     

Mistaking Statistics for Rigor in American Business School Research： Should China Follow,or Lead in a New Direction？

The heavy emphasis on statistical rigor that business schools in American universities place on research is questionable in general and, for business schools in China, is not necessarily a good strategy by which either to produce useful research or to distinguish themselves from business schools in the United States. The reasons for this pertain to, first, what statistical analysis is good for in science; second, what statistical analysis is not good for in science; third, what statistical analysis is and is not good for in business research; fourth, how a large sample size is not generalizable but a single case is; fifth, how action research, design research, and Herbert Simon＇s ＂sciences of the artificial＂ all demonstrate rigor without statistics; and finally, the historical context that explains the turn to statistics in American business schools but is irrelevant to China. The recommendation is for business schools in China not necessarily to reject statistical research, but rather, to also pursue other, equally scientific forms of research, including those recognized by Herbert Simon.     

Trade Promotion from Neighborhood

If you are considering to trade with companies in Japan or expanding your .business to Japan, we are ready to help from the very beginning.＂ You will find this greeting at the first sight on the Chinese website of Japan External Trade Organization （JETRO）. JETRO has committed itself in delivering highly efficient and quality services to meet the demand of internal and external customs including Japanese companies, hence winning a good reputation in the international trade arena. In recent years, with its priority in advancing business cooperation in South and East Asia, JETRO has made great achievement in promoting trade between China and Japan. Therefore, China＇s Foreign Trade interviewed Mr. Yoichi Maine, Deputy Director General of JETRO BEIJING.     

Weaving A Global Network

in recent years, private enterprises have increasingly become a major economic force in China. As such businesses grow, the revenue from the international business that they conduct grows accordingly. China＇s private enterprises are going global. Due to the world＇s economic globalizatlon and China＇s entry into the WTO, both domestic and international competition has come to be more intensified, which to some extent has provided a favorable environment for the international business operations of China＇s private enterprises. A document entitled Opinions of the State Council on Encouraging, Supporting and Guiding the Development of the Non-Public Ownership Economy, Including Individual Ownership and Private Investment, issued in February 2005, explicitly supports the exploration of foreign markets by private enterpris- es. It is the definitive guide for private business in China, and thus has been a driving force behind private enterprises to start international business.     

Innovation,key for＂Made in China＂ to out of crisis

China＇s foreign trade and export enterprises have encountered unprecedented pressure during the global financial crisis - but analysts say they believe innovation is the way out for the ＂Made in China＂ brand.
The Quanzhou Baofeng Shoes Company, one of China＇s leading producer of slippers, is precisely the type of exporter that should be on its knees. Headquartered in Quanzhou, a coastal city in southeastern Fujian Province, Baofeng used to export 90 percent of its annual output to the United States.     

High Performance Work Systems and Employee Creativity： The Mediating Effect of Knowledge Sharing

Employee creativity is both the core element of a firm＇s innovation capabilities and the sources for its growth. To improve an organization＇s ability to innovate, it is necessary to improve the creativity of its employees. Based on theories from strategic human resource management, creativity and organizational learning, this paper investigates the relationship between high performance work systems and employee creativity and explores the role knowledge sharing plays in their relationship. A questionnaire is designed and administered to a group of part-time executive students in the winter of 2012. Two hundred students are invited to answer the survey questions with 117 valid responses. Data are collected and processed by using statistical regressions. The empirical findings reveal that high performance work systems positively affect knowledge sharing and employee creativity. Knowledge sharing plays a mediating role in the relationship between high performance work systems and employee creativity. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.     

Understanding Organizational Agility Development for a Government： A Process Model of Resource Configuration

Organizational agility, the ability to sense and respond to changes quickly, has been regarded as an important index of organizational performance in rapidly changing environments. However, research on agility has largely overlooked the dynamics of the resource configuration process, which includes resource selection, acquisition, development, and management. Prior studies have mostly taken for granted a set of organizational resources deemed sufficient for developing agility, and overlooked the efforts required to render the resources ready for agility development. Adopting the resource-based view, this study aims to close such a theoretical gap by conceptualizing a dynamic resource configuration process. Based on a case study of the Shanghai Social Security Card System （SSSCS） project, we inductively develop a process model for resource configuration in agility development. This model demonstrates the configuration process of IT resources and institutional resources to create agility. Simultaneously, it stresses that IT resources may serve in initiating corresponding institutional resources, assist in the molding and shaping of new institutional resources, and also serve in sustaining institutional resources. Our research contributes to the organizational agility literature by elaborating on the dynamic resource configuration process embedded in the agility development process. Our findings offer suggestions to governments and guide them in configuring 1T and institutional resources to develop organizational agility.     

Fly Your Own Kite High——Interview with Susan Huang,Deputy General Mananger of Mcc Paper Yinhe Co.,Ltd

Susan Huang, a legend in the paper making industry at home and abroad, has built MCC Paper Yinhe to be a renowned brand by herself and her team, and the company, starting from the scratch now grows to be a large-sized strong one, which has products exported to 95 countries and districts throughout 6 continents. She is also the winner of ＂Qilu Friendship Award＂ in 2008, given by Shandong Provincial People＇s Government to the Foreign Experts who have great contribution to the Economic Development of Shandong Province, and rewarded as ＂Female Pacesetter＂ this year, by the All-China Women＇s Federation （ACWF）. Brave enough as Huang, she chose a rocky road to start the imp. ＆ exp. business after her return to China from Canada in an unknown and strange small city of China, however, dreaming to flying high in the sky. With unyielding determination and tremendous efforts she paid, her company, Yinhe is like a delicate paper-made kite, flying high in the international market.     

Zhang Hao,Health Is Wealth

Zhang Hao owns great opportunity to store intelligence and knowledge,in her early year.Zhang Hao was graduated from Eco nomic Management Department of People＇s University in 1983 and later finished her study in Advanced Training Program of CEO of Chinese Direct Selling Enterprises in Peking University.In addition,with more than a decade＇s working experience in traditional industry, Zhang Hao began to work on sales of Guozhen serial products of New Era Health Industry since the year 1998.Combining the theory and practice together,Zhang Hao walked out her own journey towards success.     

Discussion of “Recognizing Ethical Issues: An Examination of Practicing Industry Accountants and Accounting Students”

Although the political and consumer consciousness has turned increasingly green, many firms continue to resist the adoption of environment-friendly technological innovations—even in the face of higher costs, negative health effects, and stricter government oversight. This article examines how business owners weigh the trade-offs associated with environment-friendly innovations by examining the role of prosocial motivation in their decision-making process. We use primary data to overcome a common restriction in studying environmental innovations—the scarcity of relevant data—to analyze how business owners’ expectations, perceptions, and motivations affect innovation in organizational processes and, consequently, the level of environmental friendliness of their products or services. We found that prosocial motivation had a significant negative impact on innovation adoption and that it is expressed differently under high and low levels of customer compatibility—possibly because business owners have a larger number of competing social objectives and priorities. Our results further showed that the innovation’s ability to satisfy downstream customer demands has the greatest impact on environment-friendly innovation adoption decisions by business owners. This study enhances our understanding of how business owners make innovation decisions based on competing business, environmental and social objectives and provides a foundation for future research in this area.     

Virtual customer environment design and organizational innovation: An exploration–exploitation perspective

ABSTRACT

Many firms are developing virtual customer environments (VCEs) that provide customers the opportunity to submit, discuss, and vote for new ideas. Some studies show that VCEs promote the development of incremental improvements in existing products and services (i.e., exploitative innovation). However, other studies find that customers working in VCEs will often suggest radical ideas for brand new products and services (i.e., exploratory innovation). Exploration and exploitation are often incompatible; thus, we address this paradox by investigating whether the design of a firm’s VCE architecture is related to the firm’s exploratory innovation activity and exploitative innovation activity. Using matched data collected from VCEs and managers, we show that two-way information exchange VCE tools facilitate exploratory innovation, and one-way information exchange VCE tools enhance exploitative innovation. We also find that absorptive capacity positively moderates the latter relationship. Our findings have implications for research and practice in VCEs, organizational innovation, and organizational learning.     

Business Models

The business model concept, although a relatively new topic for research, has garnered growing attention over the past decade. Whilst it has been robustly defined, the concept has so far attracted very little substantive research. In the context of the wide-spread digitization of businesses and society at large, the logic inherent in a business model has become critical for business success and, hence, a focus for academic inquiry. The business model concept is identified as the missing link between business strategy, processes, and Information Technology (IT). The authors argue that the BISE community offers distinct and unique competencies (e.g., translating business strategies into IT systems, managing business and IT processes, etc.) that can be harnessed for significant research contributions to this field. Within this research gap three distinct streams are delineated, namely, business models in IT industries, IT enabled or digital business models, and IT support for developing and managing business models. For these streams, the current state of the art, suggest critical research questions, and suitable research methodologies are outlined.     

The relationship between CIO’s presence in the top management team and IT’s contribution to corporate innovation: An empirical study

This study investigates the impact of CIO’s presence in an organization’s top management team (TMT) on the contribution of information technology (IT) to corporate innovation. A new theoretical model is proposed based on the literature review. Through a survey of 120 CIOs of Chinese companies, we examine a series of hypotheses developed based on this model. Our findings reveal significant influences of CIO’s presence in the TMT on IT’s contribution to corporate innovations. The findings also suggest that such impacts are mediated by TMT’s IT knowledge. Furthermore, we find the significant moderating role of TMT’s risk appetite, i.e., when the executives are more willing to take risks, the relationship between CIO’s participation in TMT and the importance of IT to innovation is more significant. Theoretical contributions and practical implications of these findings are also discussed.     

Moving beyond initial success: Promoting innovation in small businesses through high-performance work practices

After firms experience initial success, leaders frequently turn their attention toward producing and selling their products or services more efficiently, likely at the expense of ongoing innovation. This seemingly prudent decision may unintentionally lead firms to become one-hit wonders, effectively limiting their potential success over time. To help prevent a firm's early success from being its only success, small business executives should adopt practices that promote innovation yet don’t come at substantial cost given limited financial resources. Focusing on the positive influences of ability, commitment, and feedback, we propose a system of high-performance work practices (HPWPs) as an economical means of encouraging innovative behavior that allows for efficiency without losing an emphasis on creativity and entrepreneurial action. This article outlines and discusses nine specific HPWPs targeted for smaller businesses that are expected to promote and fully realize the potential of employees as the driving force for innovation and sustained success.     

Practice Makes Profit: Business Practices and Firm Success

Which business practices set successful firms apart from others? We address this question using data from an official survey of almost 3000 New Zealand firms. Questions cover: leadership, planning practices, customer and supplier focus, employee practices, quality and process monitoring, benchmarking, community and social responsibility, innovation, IT use, business structure and the competitive environment. Some of these are internal practices reflecting a firm’s resources and capabilities; some are characteristics of the external environment. We find that capital investment choices, R&;D practices, market research and a range of employee practices are positively associated with firm success; industry structure is also a key determinant of success. The association between specific business practices and firm success is mostly independent of firm size, age and industrial sector, other than for export marketing.     

The Influence of Partner Knowledge Complementarities on the Effectiveness of IT Outsourcing

Despite the importance of knowledge complementarities to inter-firm cooperation, few researchers in information systems (IS) have examined, to date, the construct of knowledge complementarities (KC), and none have examined its role in the success of IT outsourcing alliances. In this paper, we distinguish between potential knowledge complementarities (PKC) and synergistic value, which comprise KC. PKC is conceptualized as a multidimensional construct encompassing knowledge types (similar and specialized) and knowledge domains (business and IT). Further, we examine the extent to which PKC between the client and the vendor promotes success in IT outsourcing alliances. This research also includes relative absorptive capacity because it is relevant when complementary knowledge flows between organizations. We used data from a field study of 81 firms in Korea to test the proposed model. Our findings indicate that each dimension of PKC contributes uniquely to knowledge complementarities. The results also show that PKC is significantly associated with IT outsourcing effectiveness. Relative absorptive capacity is found to be a moderator between PKC and IT outsourcing effectiveness. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed in the paper.     

Determinants of Small Business EDI Adoption: An Empirical Investigation

Given the importance of widespread adoption for the success of electronic data interchange (EDI) and the "much-slower-than-anticipated" growth of EDI adoption in small businesses, in this study we aimed to identify the key determinants of small business EDI adoption. Based on prior research on IT/EDI adoption in large/small organizations, a model that incorporates 7 factors that are hypothesized to have influence on the EDI adoption decision was developed and empirically tested against data collected from 627 small businesses, with 38% of them having already adopted the technology. The findings suggest that in the eyes of small businesses, EDI still is not considered as something that enables a business to gain major strategic benefits or competitive advantages. Although perceived costs are found to be major impediments to adoption, small businesses tend to have an "unbalanced" treatment between direct and indirect benefits, focusing more on those that are immediate and direct rather than on long-term, indirect benefits. Furthermore, prior EDI experience and perceived level of support from the vendor are also important determinants of EDI adoption in small businesses. Implications to Internet-based EDI systems are also discussed.     

ICT,Innovation and Firm Performance: The Transition Economies Context

The aim of this article is to investigate the impact of information communication technologies (ICT) and innovation activities on firm performance using the Business Environment Enterprise Performance Survey (BEEPS) firm-level data in the three rounds: 2002, 2005, and 2008. The novelty of this research is based on the idea of studying the usage of ICT and innovation activities on firm performance by using dynamic approach so that we can estimate the adjustments that arise from the impact of ICT and innovation activities. The rapid technological development and the growing use of information technology (IT) in business organizations have become the center of attention in past few years. A bulk of literature has been published on the use of IT in different industries, different types of business organizations, and in different areas of business management. On the other hand, the probability of the firm to undertake innovation activities has shown to enhance firm performance. This study implements various estimations on BEEPS observations to test whether the change in the usage of ICT and other innovation determinants have increase the probability of firms to undertake innovation activities. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Institutionalizing Ethical Innovation in Organizations: An Integrated Causal Model of Moral Innovation Decision Processes

This article answers several calls—coming as well from corporate governance practitioners as from corporate governance researchers—concerning the possibility of complying simultaneously with requirements of innovation and ethics. Revealing the long-term orientation as the variable which permits us to link the principal goal of organization, being “survival,” with innovation and ethic, the article devises a framework for incorporating ethics into a company’s processes and strategies for innovation. With the principal goal of organizations being “survival” in the long-term, it is assumed that innovation is necessary in order to realize a going concern. Firms that do not innovate and adapt to rapidly changing business environments are less likely to be sustainable. Thus, it is in a business’ best interests to adopt an innovation process for long-term success. We posit that there are two simultaneous sources of innovation and change that are unavoidable and embedded in the corporate landscape. First, we argue for genetically embedded, Darwinian explanations for adaptations that enable an entity’s survival. This view is combined with more conventional, social science explanations for change. Our new, comprehensive model of the governance of innovation processes hinges on the one hand on an organization’s long-term orientation, which we argue, is not possible without a consideration of an ethical dimension. On the other hand, the model employs, for the first time, the concept of duality, in order to make the positive coexistence of innovation and ethic analytically visible. Guided by this concept the roots of the ethic within innovation are traced from both natural science forces for change, and cultural pressures operating on members of an organization. We present our Integrated Causal Model of Innovation and propose theoretical relationships that will generate numerous avenues for future research in the field, and help managers to reorient their governance strategies.