Asian management research needs more self-confidence

The challenges faced by Asian businesses merit scholarly investigation, both to help local business and to enrich the global scholarly discourse. Such research should be able to make major contributions, for instance by explaining context-specific variables and effects, and by drawing on traditional Asian thought in developing new theories. Yet, recent work, in part due to a lack of self-confidence to analyze the implications of indigenous contexts, seems to have made little progress on this agenda. I first discuss how Asian management research could potentially contribute to global management knowledge. On this basis, I outline institutional constraints that may suppress indigenous and innovative research and thus inhibit the potential impact of local work. I conclude that Asian scholars ought to be more careful in applying theories developed in other contexts, and they can be more self-confident in exploring locally relevant research issues, and in developing theories that explain Asian phenomena.     

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.

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.

Asian management research needs more self-confidence: Reflection on Hofstede (2007) and beyond

Hofstede’s cross-cultural paradigm has stimulated academic interest in value and behavioral variations across national borders and helped practitioners to capture national cultural stereotypes in concrete and measurable terms. Nevertheless, the Hofstede paradigm with its focus on cultural differences can hardly capture today’s new cross-cultural management environment characterized by change and paradox in borderless and wireless cultural learning, knowledge transfer, and synchronized information sharing. In the twenty-first century, management faces new challenges because people in the twenty-first century are increasingly no longer bipolarized and isolated creatures but of multicultural identities and multicultural minds. Asian management researchers need to learn from the West but at the same time need to have self-confidence and courage in using indigenous knowledge to make contributions to theory building with global relevance.     

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.

Chinese industrial relations research: In search of a broader analytical framework and representation

The transformation of industrial relations (IR) in China over the last three decades has been (partially) captured by the growing number of scholarly studies in the English language literature. Despite the major contribution of these studies in advancing our understanding of contemporary IR in China and the (changing) roles of traditional institutional actors, significant research gaps remain. This review paper argues that research on Chinese IR needs to include a broader category of IR actors, including more categories of workers than the current focus, to examine the new role of traditional actors and the role of emerging actors in shaping the IR processes and outcomes, even if their role may be episodic and spatially confined. It also argues that Chinese IR research needs to embrace a wider range of disciplinary perspectives, for example cultural perspective and human resource management, to go beyond the radical-pluralist and structuralist approaches that have often been deployed. Equally, it argues that instead of focusing primarily on conflicts as IR issues for research, we should also examine forms of collectivism, sources of bargaining power, and scope for cooperation. Finally, this paper argues for a closer link between Chinese IR research and public policy.     

Influences of top management team incentives on firm risk taking

In our work, the influences on subsequent firm risk taking of fixed incentives relative to variable incentives as well as the separate effects on subsequent corporate risk taking of variable incentives are examined. Focusing on the top management team members, we find a higher proportion of incentives that are devoted to fixed incentives relative to variable incentives tend to be inversely associated with subsequent firm risk taking. Managerial stock options are directly and uniformly associated with subsequent corporate risk taking. Executive shareholdings, however, display a curvilinear relationship with subsequent enterprise risk taking. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Salesforce selection that meets federal regulation and management needs

A key problem for industrial marketing management is to develop a selection process that is both legally valid and managerially useful. By applying a selection approach which incorporates both a sequential selection process and a validation procedure, industrial marketers should be able to make better hiring decisions as well as comply with existing governmental regulations.     

Incorporating human resource management initiatives into customer services: Empirical evidence from Chinese manufacturing firms

The existing operations management literature has extensively investigated the associations between customer satisfaction and firm performance. However, how to improve customer satisfaction through employee empowerment, service reward, and service training has rarely been investigated. In this research, we tied human resource and service operations management to each other and examined the relationships among employee empowerment, service reward, service training, employee satisfaction, customer service and customer satisfaction based on empirical study of 214 Chinese manufacturing companies. Using structural equation modeling, we found that both employee empowerment and service training have significant impacts on employee satisfaction and customer service, while service reward only has significant impact on customer service. We also found that both employee satisfaction and customer service have significant impact on customer satisfaction. However, the impact of employee satisfaction on customer service is insignificant. The findings suggest that employee empowerment, service reward and service training are important considerations for operations managers to boost employee satisfaction and customer service, which in turn improve customer satisfaction. We provide empirical evidence that employee empowerment, service reward and service training play significant roles in increasing customer satisfaction in the context of manufacturing businesses.     

Total cost/response rate trade-offs in mail survey research: impact of follow-up mailings and monetary incentives

This article reports results of a mail survey experiment in which several response-inducement methods were manipulated. The experiment assesses the impact of follow-up mailings and monetary incentives on total cost/response rate trade-offs. Experimental findings lead to a number of recommendations for researchers and managers who conduct mail surveys. First, follow-up mailings and monetary incentives should be used to maximize response rate. Second, given a limited budget for survey administration, follow-up mailings are preferred over monetary incentives. Third, if there is limited time for survey administration, monetary incentives may be preferred over follow-up mailings. Finally, follow-up mailings have the added benefit of enabling nonresponse bias estimation.     

Measuring and testing change in strategic management research

This paper reviews some critical issues associated with measuring and testing change and then reports on how strategy researchers have addressed those matters. We first discuss three key methodological requirements: reliability assumptions of change variables, correlations between the change variable and its initial measure, and selection of unbiased measurement alternatives. Next, we present data from a content analysis of 126 change studies which suggest that strategy researchers tend not to recognize those requirements. Indeed, the typical approach used to measure and test change (as a simple difference between two measures of the same variable) is usually inappropriate and could lead to inaccurate findings and flawed conclusions. We conclude by offering suggestions for how change can be studied more rigorously. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Project management and communication patterns in industrial research

A pilot study has been carried out on one project: (a) to develop a suitable methodology for studying communication; (b) to see whether the findings of external studies apply to the laboratory; (c) to examine a part of the communication pattern of the laboratory. Results showed that for the project studied: (a) the needs of the project dominated the communication; (b) previous external findings on “technological gatekeepers” and “distance stopping communication” did not apply in the project studied; (c) a suit able methodology has been developed.     

Encouraging and enabling action research in innovation management

Although action research offers great advantages of connecting academia and practice, it is surprisingly underutilised in innovation management. This paper, therefore, focuses on how innovation management research and researchers can more effectively and efficiently apply action research to their domain. The analysis commences with the rationale for aligning action research and innovation management before assessing the strengths and limitations of existing interdisciplinary action research approaches from an innovation management perspective. Combining and enhancing the strengths of these approaches, a new Action Innovation Management Research (AIM-R) framework is developed to assist in resolving the increasing demand for action-orientation in innovation management. AIM-R offers a structured research process for systematically applying action research as a way of encouraging rigorous research processes, while also importantly stimulating relevant practical outcomes. AIM-R specifically considers different change levels (individual, team, organisational) and objects (e.g. outcome, process, capability) critical for the multi-faceted character of innovation management. A real-world example towards the end of the article illustrates how AIM-R has been applied to a complex problem-solution space. This example adds important insights for readers wanting to apply this more engaged, but currently underutilised, innovation management research technique.     

Achieving food security in Central Asia — current challenges and policy research needs

This paper introduces the papers of this Special Issue on Achieving Food Security in Central Asia. Identifying the current challenges, it enlists the information gaps and policy research needs for accelerating the reform process in the food, agriculture and natural resource sectors of the Central Asian Republics. The paper concludes by calling for identifying policies and institutional arrangements that facilitate economic reforms that will lead to poverty reduction, increased food security, and sustainable use of natural resources.     

高校科研管理系统的设计与实现

分析了C/S和B/S 2种模式混合使用的优越性,讨论了基于这2种混合模式如何进行高校科研管理系统的功能设计、系统体系结构设计、系统开发工具环境选择、功能模块划分,介绍了系统实施过程中的主要技术,并叙述了校级课题申报、审批、合同、结题等管理功能。