Integrating nonmarket and market resources,strategy and performance in Chinese enterprises: a review of the field and a resource-based empirical study

The resource-based view (RBV) regards strategy as deploying resources to obtain a competitive advantage. This article adopts such a RBV, by a simultaneous consideration of nonmarket and market factors, and then an empirical analysis of the relationships between such nonmarket and market resources, strategies and performance, focusing specifically on Chinese enterprises. The results test hypotheses related to the integrated strategy and RBV of the firm on linkages of nonmarket and market components. Combining those two views, this study reveals that there is a high and positive correlation between nonmarket and market strategies, while nonmarket strategy has a positive indirect effect on market performance via nonmarket performance. These findings suggest that the RBV is an appropriate theory for addressing the shortcomings in integrated strategy research.     

Aesthetic Leadership in Chinese Business: A Philosophical Perspective

Confucian ethics play a pivotal role in guiding Chinese thinking and behaviour. Aesthetic leadership is emerging as a promising paradigm in leadership studies. This study investigates the practice of aesthetic leadership in Chinese organizations on the basis of Chinese philosophical foundations. We adopt a process perspective to access the aesthetic constellation of meanings present in the Chinese understanding of leadership, linking normative Confucian values to a pragmatic value rational world view, that rests on an ontology of vaguely defined norms that are malleable to different cultural contexts. Value rational pragmatism is explored in order to develop a deeper understanding of normative aesthetic leadership in China and to contrast it to instrumental aesthetic leadership. We empirically demonstrate the contextual specificity of aesthetic leadership in eight Chinese private- and state-owned enterprises (POEs and SOEs) through qualitative case studies. The findings provide a deeper insight into Chinese aesthetic leadership by proposing a dynamic leadership approach, from both ethical and instrumental perspectives, in the Chinese context.     

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CAPITAL STOCK, UNEMPLOYMENT AND WAGES IN NINE EMU COUNTRIES

The focus of this paper is to investigate the importance of the capital stock in the determination of wages and unemployment in a range of EMU countries and to compare the results across countries. A time‐series analysis is conducted in the case of nine euro area countries, which were selected solely on the basis of data availability and consistency: Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Ireland, the Netherlands and Spain. The paper begins with a short review of the literature on capital stock and unemployment, before it deals with the theoretical model. This is followed by estimation and testing of the theoretical model put forward, using both time‐series and panel data. The results are supportive of the main hypothesis of the paper: capital stock is an important determinant of unemployment and wages in the countries considered for the purposes of the paper.     

THE CHAIRMAN'S STATEMENT AND CORPORATE FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE

Agency theory and signalling theory both suggest that firms are motivated to disclose excellence of financial performance in an unambiguous manner. We might expect, therefore, that good financial performance is associated with a clear and readable Chairman's narrative and poor performance with an obscure or misleading message. Extant work linking corporate performance with clarity of executive narrative fails to distinguish sample cases by industry or financial status. This paper seeks to overcome the consequences of such deficiencies explicitly, by conducting a systematic analysis of the relationship between narrative complexity and alternative measures of financial performance, for a matched sample of failed/non-failed companies across common industries. This study employs separate measures of the readability and the understandability of the chairman's narrative and finds them to be significantly related to overall financial performance and individual measures of performance, most notably liquidity. Poor readability is strongly associated with poor financial performance and ease of readability with relative financial success. The implication is that firms actively signal good news while obscuring, perhaps deliberately, messages which convey bad news.     

Epidemics,labour markets and unemployment: the impact of SARS on human resource management in the Hong Kong service sector

This article examines the links between epidemics and their economic consequences, specifically in terms of their impacts on labour markets and jobs. To exemplify the above, we examine the effects of SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) on the Hong Kong economy, its labour market and its level of employment and unemployment. The article hypothesizes that the greatest impact would be on human resource management (HRM) in the service industries and on particular sub-sectors, such as the hotel sector. It concludes that the dramatic demand and supply ‘shocks’ significantly affected both the demand for and the supply of labour in the sector, with discernible HRM consequences.     

Introduction: globalizing international human resource management

In this Introduction, we have sought to explain the rationales in putting together a ‘Special Issue’ on Globalizing International Human Resource Management (IHRM). These include, first, coverage of as wide a range of regional and national cultures as possible; second, presentation of as wide a set as perspectives as possible; and last, discussion of how these may shape both theory and practice in the field.     

HRM as a predictor of innovation

There is growing evidence available to suggest that HR practice is an important predictor of organisational performance. In this article, we argue that HR practices also have the potential to promote organisational innovation. We describe a longitudinal study of 22 UK manufacturing companies and examine the relationship between such practices and product and technological innovation. Results reveal that training, induction, team working, appraisal and exploratory learning focus are all predictors of innovation. Contingent reward, applied in conjunction with an exploratory learning focus, is positively associated with innovation in technical systems. Furthermore, training, appraisal and induction, combined with exploratory learning focus, explain variation between companies in product and technological innovation above and beyond the main effects observed.     

The WTO Doha Agenda—Progress and Issues for Asia Pacific Developing Economies

Progress in the Doha Round of WTO negotiations has been slow. Frameworks for establishing modalities for agriculture, non-agricultural market access and trade facilitation were agreed upon in July 2004 but key details are still to be negotiated and many commitments remain vague. For developing economies in the Asia Pacific region, the July package contains many potentially positive elements, including a commitment to remove all forms of agricultural export subsidies and a framework for reducing domestic supports and market access restrictions. However, most of the difficult issues are still to be addressed. Already it is apparent the agreements and commitments will be complex, full of exceptions (especially for developing countries due to their insistence on economically damaging forms of special and differential treatment) and difficult to interpret. This will serve to enable all governments to fudge commitments and to undermine the transparency of the multilateral trading system. Latest developments are not encouraging. Critical target dates set in the July package in preparation for the December Hong Kong Ministerial Conference were missed due to negotiations lagging in all key areas. Without a successful outcome in Hong Kong, it is unlikely the Doha Round will be completed by the current deadline of 2007.