Feminism in Transition: Chinese Culture, Ideology and the Development of the Women's Movement in China

This study is concerned with transitional gender roles and relations, illuminated through an examination of the status of women in China from the Mao era to the post-Mao era. The study reveals that the socialist state has maintained a high degree of control over gender construction in order to legitimise its historical achievement of revolution and liberation, assuming given gender identities within the official discourse of socialism. Liberation meant creating a fundamentally new and more democratic socialism within a male hegemony. This is derived from the core philosophy Confucianism in which human role relations are cultivated and developed within a male-centred world. Consequently, this discourse opens up an authoritative normalisation process that hinders women's progress in the state, in the household and in organisations. Women's new identity involves aspects of biologically given features, internalisation of the patriarchal family and social relations. Collective relational construction therefore emphasises the feminine/maternal principles of identity, denouncing separation and independence. This phenomenon seems to be pushing the whole of gender politics in China back towards more traditional sex role differences and power imbalances.     

Rallying the Troops or Beating the Horses? How Project‐Related Demands Can Lead to Either High‐Performance or Abusive Supervision

In today's high‐pressure work environment, project managers are often forced to “do more with less.” We argue that this imperative can lead project managers to engage in either high‐performance or abusive supervision behaviors. To understand this process, we develop a model and associated propositions linking a project manager's cognitive appraisal of project‐related demands to high‐performance work practices versus abusive supervision behaviors—both of which impact three project outcomes: stakeholder relationships, people‐related project success factors, and employee well‐being. We propose that the choice between high‐performance work practices and abusive supervision behaviors is moderated by a project manager's personal resources (psychological capital, emotional intelligence, and dark triad personality).     

Efficiency externalities of trade and alternative forms of foreign investment in OECD countries

The literature on the spillover effects of trade and inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI) has concentrated on technological externalities. Little effort has been directed towards identifying their efficiency externalities. This paper measures the efficiency externalities of trade and various forms of foreign investment for a sample of 20 OECD countries between 1982 and 2000 using a stochastic frontier approach. Trade and all foreign investment inflows are found to enhance efficiency, whereas outflows of FDI are found to exacerbate inefficiency. The efficiency externalities from foreign investment are contingent on the absorptive capacity of the host economies. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Corporate restructuring and career advancement in Hong Kong

This paper examines the factors that contribute to career advancement in a sample of forty-four Hong Kong managers working in three local companies that had undergone restructuring. The findings indicate that they were acutely aware of shifts in the nature of their career paths but generally were reactive to changes rather than proactive. Their concerns about changes were mostly instrumental and pragmatic judgements about how things might affect their job security and career prospects. To increase their chances of getting promoted, they focused on human-capital investment by upgrading and widening their work skills. While they felt obligated to work overtime and enhance their performance by taking on extra duties and responsibilities, they sought to develop a harmonious relationship with the environment rather than dominate it. They disliked challenging their superiors, preferring instead to imitate their superiors' behavioural patterns. In their efforts to increase opportunities for career advancement, they employed business networking and visibility as ‘wooing’ strategies. Furthermore, the desire to avoid losing face and humiliation were effective motivators.     

Gender differences in firm performance: Evidence from new ventures in the United States

Prior studies examining the performance of female- and male-owned firms have generally reported that female-owned firms underperform male-owned firms. However, it is conceivable that the performance measures used by previous studies and/or their inability to control for key demographic differences may have contributed to this finding. For example, few studies use size adjusted performance measures and yet we know that female-owned firms tend to be smaller than their male counterparts. Similarly, risk is typically not considered even though evidence suggests that women tend to be more risk averse than men. We use a longitudinal (five-year) database of more than 4000 new ventures that began operations in the U.S. in 2004 to determine whether potential differences in the performances of female- and male-owned firms disappear when appropriate performance measures are used and important demographic differences are controlled for in the models. The performance measures we examine include: 4-year closure rates; return on assets (ROA); and a risk-adjusted measure (Sharpe ratio). Univariate test results confirm our expectation (based on both liberal and social feminist theory) that there is no difference in the performance of female- and male-owned new ventures provided performance is appropriately measured. Further, these results are supported by our multivariate analyses, which control for demographic differences such as industry, experience and hours worked. Our findings should be of interest to researchers, financiers, advisors and policy makers. Perhaps more importantly, our findings should also ensure that women who are contemplating starting a new venture are not discouraged from doing so by a false belief that new ventures initiated by women are less likely to succeed than those initiated by men.     

Matching Ethical Work Climate to In-role and Extra-role Behaviors in a Collectivist Work Setting

This paper studies the relationship between organizational ethical climate and the forms of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), including in-role and extra-role behaviors, and examines the mediating effect of employee loyalty. A sample of employees from a traditional Hong Kong-based company was used as a study group. The purpose of this study was to examine the causes and implications of how various ethical work climates affect employee performance. Based on a model proposed by Victor and Cullen, ethical climate is arranged from lower levels to higher levels. The results suggest that lower levels of ethical climate (instrumentality and independence), characterizing a weak relational contract between employee and employer, are associated with negative extra-role behavior. In contrast, higher levels of ethical climate (caring and law-and-code), symbolic of a strong relational contract at work, are associated with positive extra-role behavior. Moreover, normative commitment mediated a positive relationship between caring and identification with the company, whereas attitudinal loyalty mediated the negative relationship between independence and altruism. Implications for future research and practice are discussed. Dr. Alicia Leung is an Associate Professor of Management at the Hong Kong Baptist University. She received her Ph.D. degree in Management Learning from the University of Lancaster, U.K. She is active in researching and writing materials about Asian organizations and management issues. Her research interests include gender issues and feminist methodology, business ethics, corporate governance, and strategic management in the Asian context.     

中国的汇率政策和亚洲贸易

编者按:中国经济快速发展,贸易盈余不断扩大,世界贸易不平衡持续加剧,这种失衡状态不仅成为中国,而且成为世界各国近年来广泛关注的热点问题之一.本次金融危机虽然使各国经济发展步伐放缓,但世界经济的根本格局未变,在各国经济逐步走出低谷之后,预计世界贸易不平衡格局将进一步延续,对这一问题的关注将不可避免.人民币汇率升值能否改变中国和亚洲国家的贸易盈余,进而改善世界贸易不平衡状况成为问题的核心.     

The impact of workplace ostracism in service organizations

This study examines the effects of personal and situational determinants on work engagement and service performance. Drawing on Conservation of Resources (COR) Theory, we hypothesize that workplace ostracism will reduce work engagement and service performance and that highly neurotic individuals are more susceptible to ostracism. To test the model, we collect longitudinal data from 304 supervisor–subordinate dyads in 19 Chinese hotels. As predicated, we find that: (1) workplace ostracism is negatively related to service performance; (2) workplace ostracism negatively impacts employee service performance via work engagement; and (3) neuroticism strengthens workplace ostracism's direct effect on work engagement and indirect effect on service performance. The implications of these findings, the strengths and limitations of the study, and directions for future research are discussed.     

Decomposing economic mobility transition matrices

We present a decomposition method for transition matrices to identify forces driving the persistence of economic status across generations. The method decomposes differences between an estimated transition matrix and a benchmark transition matrix into portions attributable to differences in characteristics between individuals from different households (a composition effect) and portions attributable to differing returns to these characteristics (a structure effect). A detailed decomposition based on copula theory further decomposes the composition effect into portions attributable to specific characteristics and their interactions. To examine potential drivers of economic persistence in the USA, we apply the method to white males from the 1979 US National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Depending on the transition matrix entry of interest, differing characteristics between sons from different households explain between 40% and 70% of observed income persistence, with differing returns for these characteristics explaining the remaining gap. Further, detailed decompositions reveal significant heterogeneity in the role played by specific characteristics (e.g., education) across the income distribution.