Chung-Ming Lau

Human resource practices and firm performance of multinational corporations: influences of country origin

Drawing from a cultural values perspective, we investigate the effects of country origins on HR (human resource) practices of firms from the United States, Great Britain, Japan and Hong Kong operating in Hong Kong. In general, results supported hypothesized differences in HR practices of firms from different countries. In addition, results indicated that HR practices, specifically structural training and development and retention-oriented compensation, were related to various measures of firm performance. Of further interest was the finding that country origin moderated relationships of HR practices with firm performance; in general, relationships of structural training and development and retention-oriented compensation were stronger for Hong Kong firms. Implications of the results are discussed.

Asian Management Research: Status Today and Future Outlook

This paper reviews the existing management research on Asia. The findings highlight that Asian management research not only builds the understanding of Asia, but also makes a critical contribution to the broad domain of management studies. In particular, Asian-focused research allows researchers to extend and revise theories through the consideration of new contextual variables. This enables researchers to fine-tune theories by developing context-specific conditions and operationalization of key constructs, which in turn allows researchers to develop new theories and constructs which are generalizable to research in other contexts. This systematic examination will help to lay the foundation for the further expansion of the understanding of both Asia and of management research in general.

Organizational attractiveness of firms in the People's Republic of China : A person-organization fit perspective

The authors investigated factors related to firm attractiveness as an employer in the Peoples Republic of China. The organizational attributes of type of ownership, nationality of the supervisor, and firm familiarity in organizational descriptions were manipulated and their effects were measured on firm attractiveness. In addition, the authors adopted a person-organization fit perspective to investigate how individual difference characteristics moderated the effects of these organizational attributes on attractiveness. Although, in general, participants were more attracted to foreign than state-owned firms and to familiar than unfamiliar firms, results provided support for the person-organization fit perspective in that the individual differences moderated the effects of the organizational attributes on firm attractiveness. For example, participants were more attracted to state-owned versus foreign firms when they were more risk averse and had a lower need for pay. Thus, the results provide initial support for the generalizability of the person-organization fit perspective to a non-Western setting.

High performance work systems and performance: The role of adaptive capability

High performance work systems (HPWS) represent a systematic and integrated approach of managing human resources toward the alignment of HR functions and the achievement of firm strategy. The relationship of HPWS with firm performance has been extensively examined, though the mechanism underlying HPWS—performance relationship is not well researched, especially at the organizational level. Based on the dynamic capabilities perspective, this study examines a model with adaptive capability as the mediator in the relationship between HPWS and firm performance, aiming to understand how HPWS is positively associated with organizational outcomes. Institutional environment as a contextual factor that influences the relationship between adaptive capability and performance is also examined. Empirical results from a sample of Chinese firms indicated that HPWS—firm performance linkage was partially mediated by adaptive capability. In addition, the effect of HPWS on adaptive capability was stronger for firms in an institutional environment with location advantage than firms in other environments.

Knowledge Management of High-Tech Firms

Based on an analysis of six high-tech firms in mainland China, this chapter examines knowledge management issues by focusing on its acquisition, dissemination, and commercialization. We found that most firms emphasized knowledge acquisition. SOE-based firms relied more on their parents for early key technologies, confirming that institutional support and social capital are influential in knowledge acquisition. Social capital also help firms to overcome barriers to organizational knowledge dissemination. Its role in knowledge commercialization is also identified. Absorptive capacity is important for knowledge dissemination, since appropriate organizational arrangements have not been purposely designed.

Corporate Governance Mechanisms

This chapter examines empirically the effectiveness of the ownership structure, board structure, and compensation of a sample of Chinese firms over the period from 1997 to 1999. We find that ownership concentration and percentage of employees’ shareholding have positive impacts on firm performance, but the percentage of major officers ’ shareholding does not. The ratio of insider directors is not related to firm performance either. CEO duality has an impact on chairmen’s salaries. However, managerial compensation is, in general, not related to firm performance. Overall, there is only weak evidence supporting the effectiveness of Chinese firms’ internal governance mechanisms.

Internationalization and organizational resources of Chinese firms

Purpose – The internationalization of Chinese firms has been gaining importance in recent years. Informed by Dunnings eclectic paradigm, this paper examines the factors leading to the “going international” decisions of Chinese firms in the very early days of the “go global” call, before the central government offered substantial support.Design/methodology/approach – It is suggested that two types of organizational factors are relevant to these decisions: the firms management capability and core competencies. A survey of data of chief executives from over 3,000 firms in the year 2000 was analyzed.Findings – Empirical results indicate that different resources endowments have different relationships with internationalization decisions. The intention of going international is affected by organizational competencies of R&D and manufacturing. Two capabilities (production and sales, and operation and finance) have significant impacts on outward direct investment, while manufacturing and marketing competencies ...

Effective teamwork at the top: the evidence from China

Effective teamwork is an important topic of human resource management, and how top-level managers work effectively as a team is critical to business success. Prior research indicates that the diverse background of top managers influences the effectiveness of their teamwork, and the effects of top management team (TMT) diversity on organizational innovation varies. In this study, we propose that functional team dynamics plays a crucial role in facilitating TMT effectiveness. On the basis of a sample of Chinese firms, our findings support the distinction between demographic and network diversities and the moderating effect of functional team dynamics on TMT diversity–firm innovation relationships.

Chinese Managerial Activities: Culture versus Local Isomorphism

The purpose of this study is to examine the extent to which managerial activities differ across a sample of Taiwanese and Hong Kong managers, with their Canadian counterpart serving as the control group. The study contributes to the comparative management literature in several ways. First, it provides an opportunity to compare Taiwanese against Hong Kong managers. Aside from the fact that the comparative management literature has seldom contrasted these two groups, there is another reason why such a comparison is warranted. Since Taiwanese and Hong Kong managers share a common heritage – the Chinese culture which emphasizes a strong work ethic (Evans and Sculli, 1981), practicality (Doktor, 1990), face saving (Hofstede and Bond, 1988), and group orientation (Hofstede, 1980) – studies of Chinese managerial values (Chang, 1985; Hofstede and Bond, 1988) traditionally made no distinction between these two groups of managers. A comparison of Taiwanese and Hong Kong managers will therefore provide some evidence as to whether such practice is defensible. Thus, if the evidence suggests that managers differ in terms of their activities, it would then be misleading to group Chinese managers from different regions as a single entity and to talk about ‘Chinese management’ without accounting for country differences. This will also add credence to Bond’s (1996) study suggesting that only certain Chinese values are common across different Chinese societies. What managers do at work has been the subject of numerous studies in the management literature. Mintzberg (1973), for example, identified ten managerial roles while Kotter (1982) added networking activities as another set of activities for managers. Luthans and associates (Luthans, 1988; Luthans et al., 1985), on the other hand, categorized managerial activities into traditional, communication, networking, and human resource management activities. Others (Black and Porter, 1991; Carroll and Gillen, 1987) examined how these activities relate to job performance or organizational effectiveness. In spite of the contribution of these studies, however, those factors explaining why managerial activities differ across managers remain unidentified. A survey of comparative management studies also reveals a similar gap. While cross-country comparisons have been conducted over factors such as