Jiatao Li

Effects of International Diversity and Product Diversity on the Performance of Multinational Firms

This study examined the relationships among international diversity, product diversity, and firm performance. For a sample of large American industrial multinational enterprises (MNEs), it showed a consistent quadratic relationship between product diversification and MNE performance but minimal performance differences across different measures of international diversity. Analysis of the interactions of international diversity and product diversity indicates a weak effect from increasing internationalization on the performance effect of product diversity.

Management and Organizations in the Chinese Context

Introduction PART ONE: MANAGEMENT IN THE CHINESE CONTEXT Management and Organizations in the Chinese Context: An Overview Management and Organizations in China: Key Trends and Issues Chinas Transitional Economy A Cultural Analysis of Paternalistic Leadership in Chinese Organizations PART TWO: JOINT VENTURE MANAGEMENT AND NEGOTIATIONS IN CHINA Control and Performance in Sino-Foreign Equity Joint Ventures Operating Modes and Performance: U.S. High Technology Ventures in China International Business Negotiation in the Chinese Context PART THREE: CHINESE ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR Guanxi in the Chinese Context Guanxi And the Dynamics of Overseas Chinese Entrepreneurial Behaviour in Southeast Asia Teamwork in China: Where Reality Challenges Theory and Practice Choice of Influence Tactics : Effects of the Target Persons Behavioural Patterns, Status and the Personality of the Influencer Productivity Cultures and Competition in the Global Marketplace: Cases from Hong Kong PART 4: MANAGERIAL PERSPECTIVES Overseas Chinese Management Style: Some Reflections Doing Business in China: Staying Ahead of Your Competitors Strategic Management: Critical Issues in the Hong Kong Business Environment

Building Effective International Joint Venture Leadership Teams in China

An overlooked factor affecting the success or failure of international joint ventures is the effectiveness of the leadership teams put in charge. In this paper, we analyze the special features of leadership teams in Chinese-foreign joint ventures and identify ways to improve their effectiveness. We identify five key elements of the IJV leadership team--composition, process, structure, incentives, and the leaders behaviors--that have important implications for IJV success. Our analysis is based on the literature on top management teams, cross-cultural behavior, international joint ventures, and our own in-depth interviews with leadership teams from international joint ventures in China.

A Citation Analysis of Management and Organization Research in the Chinese Context: 1984-1999

Since modern China was closed to the outside world until 1979, research on management issues within organizations operating in the Chinese context is a relatively recent phenomenon. In this study, we analyzed this body of research by performing a citation analysis on 226 research articles on this topic published in 20 leading English language academic journals over the past 16 years (1984–1999). The citation impact analysis identified the 52 most cited articles and the academic journals as well as the most influential authors on this research. We examined the issues or topics in these 52 influential articles and suggest some directions for future research.

Untangling the Effects of Overexploration and Overexploitation on Organizational Performance: The Moderating Role of Environmental Dynamism†

Because a firms optimal knowledge search behavior is determined by unique firm and industry conditions, organizational performance should be contingent on the degree to which a firms actual level of knowledge search deviates from the optimal level. It is thus hypothesized that deviation from the optimal search, in the form of either overexploitation or overexploration, is detrimental to organizational performance. Furthermore, the negative effect of search deviation on organizational performance varies with environmental dynamism; that is, overexploitation is expected to become more harmful, whereas overexploration becomes less so with an increase in environmental dynamism. The empirical analyses yield results consistent with these arguments. Implications for research and practice are correspondingly discussed.

National Culture and the Composition and Leadership Structure of Boards of Directors

When considering board composition and leadership structure, it is important to consider national culture norms. The findings of the study also have important implications for multinational firms setting up boards for their subsidiaries in different countries. The predictive accuracy of the culture variables provides strong support for the argument that norms embedded in a societys culture affect organizational structure, at least at the board level. The results of the study contribute to our understanding of institutional theory in explaining observed variations in corporate board composition and leadership structure across countries. By linking board composition to the cultural environment, institutional theory provides an explicit framework for analyzing variations in board structure across national boundaries. Societal norms about corporate structure are treated as components of national culture. Hofstedes measures of national culture were shown to predict the board composition and leadership structure of firms based in that culture. The hypotheses were tested with data on 399 multinational manufacturing firms based in 15 industrial countries. The results suggest that national culture can have strong effects on corporate governance and should be considered in any transnational study. How and to what extent does national culture influence the composition and leadership structure of the boards of directors of multinational firms? Empirical: How and to what extent does national culture influence the composition and leadership structure of the boards of directors of multinational firms? Societal norms about corporate structure are treated as components of national culture. Hofstedes measures of national culture were shown to predict the board composition and leadership structure of firms based in that culture. The hypotheses were tested with data on 399 multinational manufacturing firms based in 15 industrial countries. The results suggest that national culture can have strong effects on corporate governance and should be considered in any transnational study.The predictive accuracy of the culture variables provides strong support for the argument that norms embedded in a societys culture affect organizational structure, at least at the board level. The results of the study contribute to our understanding of institutional theory in explaining observed variations in corporate board composition and leadership structure across countries. By linking board composition to the cultural environment, institutional theory provides an explicit framework for analyzing variations in board structure across national boundaries. When considering board composition and leadership structure, it is important to consider national culture norms. The findings of the study also have important implications for multinational firms setting up boards for their subsidiaries in different countries.

What I See, What I Do How Executive Hubris Affects Firm Innovation

This study explores the potential benefits of executive hubris to firm innovation. Grounded in the upper echelons theory and the firm innovation literature, hypotheses were developed and tested in two studies with different contexts and methods. Study 1 uses a set of cross-sectional survey data on a large sample of Chinese CEOs in manufacturing industries. Study 2 uses a set of longitudinal archival data on U.S. public firms in high-tech industries. Both studies render robust support to the authors’ main theoretical prediction—that executive hubris is positively related to firm innovation. The authors further found that the main effect varies under certain environmental conditions: The relationship between executive hubris and firm innovation becomes weaker when the environment is more munificent and complex.

Global Resource Flows and MNE Network Integration

In 1995 the total sales of foreign-controlled affiliates of multinational enterprises (MNEs) exceeded the total world trade in goods and services of

Corporate governance and national culture: a multi‐country study

6.1 trillion (WTO, 1996). Dunning (1993a) estimated that among major economies, such as Germany, the USA and the UK, MNEs account for approximately 80 per cent of trade in technology and managerial skills. In this chapter an attempt is made to identify and explain crossborder integration within established MNEs. Consideration is given specifically to the direction and the intensity of resource flows in goods and services, knowledge and capital that take place within the subsidiary network of an MNE. By examining the direction and magnitude of these resource flows, it is suggested, subsidiary strategy can be analysed along three major dimensions. This framework provides managers with greater understanding of global integration across subsidiaries.

Global R&D Alliances in China: Collaborations With Universities and Research Institutes

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to show that corporate governance structures differ significantly across countries. Using agency theory and institutional theory, it examines how ownership structure and national culture influence the size and leadership structure of the corporate boards of multinational firms based in industrial countries.Design/methodology/approach – The hypotheses are tested with data on 399 multinational manufacturing firms based in 15 industrial countries. The authors use ownership concentration, bank control, and state ownership to represent ownership structure. They view institutional structural norms as components of national culture and infer the nature of these norms for governance structure from Hofstedes national culture dimensions.Findings – The findings show that national culture has a dominant influence on corporate governance structure, and its emphasis is recommended in future cross‐national organizational research.Research limitations/implications – Although the mo...