Huan Zou

Internationalizing by learning: the case of Chinese high‐tech new ventures

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to understand how high‐tech firms from China internationalize and to determine whether they follow the gradual internationalization model suggested by the Uppsala school and/or the rapid internationalization model as suggested by the “born global” stream of researchers.Design/methodology/approach – This is an inductive and exploratory study that tries to understand questions of how and why. A multiple case study method is used to find empirical evidence for the a priori assumptions derived from the literature.Findings – It was found that the gradual internationalization model is still valid although high‐tech firms from China internationalize much faster than suggested by earlier studies and they do not follow the process suggested by born global studies.Research limitations/implications – The authors develop a number of propositions that can be empirically tested in pursuit of theory building for the internationalization of smaller firms from emerging markets.Origin...

Antecedents and Performance Consequences of Integrated Brand Management in China: An Exploratory Study

ABSTRACT This study explores the role of integrated brand management in China. Using the survey data for 309 brands, our results show that integrated brand management has a positive effect on business performance in China. We also find that top management emphasis and corporate supportive resources directly foster integrated brand management. In addition, the emphasis of top management indirectly affects integrated brand management through reward system. Furthermore, we find that these relations vary between high- and low-performance brands. The implications for transitional economies are discussed.

Psychological capital and conflict management in the entrepreneur–venture capitalist relationship in China: The entrepreneur perspective

This article explores the divergent interests and goals that have led to inherent conflicts in the dyadic relationship between entrepreneurs and venture capitalists (VCs). Whereas prior research has relied mostly on the perspective of VCs in minimizing such conflicts, we propose that an entrepreneur’s psychological capital (as opposed to economic, human and social capital) can help shed light on how they manage conflicts in their relationships with VCs. Drawing from the literature on psychological capital, we use inductive research to construct a set of theoretical propositions relating to strategic responses to resolving conflicts with VCs based on a sample of entrepreneurs in high-tech start-up firms in China.

Knowledge Management and Growth Strategies: Evidence from Chinese Knowledge-Intensive New Ventures

Entrepreneurial studies have paid significant attention to the importance of knowledge on the internationalization and performance of knowledge-intensive (K-I) firms, although considerably less attention has been carried out so far to find the impact of the knowledge management practices on different growth strategies of K-I firms. Presutti and his colleagues (2007) recently suggest that knowledge acquired from external relationships play an important role in rein-forcing the foreign operations by K-I firms. Further, acquired knowledge needs to be absorbed and translated inside the business for technology, production and even management development (Grant and Baden-Fuller, 2004). Effective intrafirm knowledge transfer by leveraging of knowledge resources through the transfer and reuse of existing knowledge acts another important role in firm’s knowledge management and growth (Watson and Hewett, 2006). However, so far most existing work focuses on one aspect of knowledge transfer instead of developing an integrated perspective on both the mechanisms in knowledge management on firm growth strategies. It is probably due to the fact that traditional studies neglect the importance of growth orientation in K-I firm growth and especially of its potential role in reinforcing the knowledge learning (Gilbert, McDougall, and Audretsch, 2006).