Jinmin Wang

The effect of leadership style on talent retention during Merger and Acquisition integration: evidence from China

Leadership and talent retention are critical HR-related components in post-merger and acquisition (M&A) integration, but the extent to which these factors interact with each other and eventually contribute to the success of post-M&A integration is under-explored. The present study investigates the effect of leadership styles on talent retention strategies and on the effectiveness of post-M&A integration in a Chinese context. Based on in-depth examination of an M&A case study, we propose that an authoritative, coaching, task-focused and relationship-focused approach has a positive influence on talent retention and effective post-M&A integration in a Chinese context. As far as talent retention strategies are concerned, authoritative leaders use communication, whereas leaders adopting a coaching style use an incentive structure to positively influence talent retention. Furthermore, task-focused leaders use position and performance in order to identify and retain talented employees. By contrast, relationship-focused leaders emphasize the guanxi network, communication and an incentive structure in their strategies of talent retention.

Assessing Overall Network Structure in Regional Innovation Policies: A Case Study of Cluster Policy in the West Midlands in the UK

Abstract Revisiting the theoretical roots of the key concepts of “embeddedness” and “networks” that underpin many recent regional innovation polices, this paper strives to achieve a more systematic understanding of the overall network structure of geographic agglomerations, which helps to form a more convincing model of regional development based on learning. This also helps to establish an analytical framework with indicators to assess the overall network structure in regional innovation policies. Employing the framework, the examination of cluster policy in the West Midlands highlights its weakness in addressing the overall cluster network structure and the contingent factors influencing the structure. The analysis suggests that there may be similar weaknesses in other regional innovation policies and the theories underpinning them as they share a common weakness in addressing the structural characteristics of overall networks.

Institutional change and the development of industrial clusters in China : case studies from the textile and clothing industry

Institutions, Industrial Clusters and Economic Development The Development of Textile and Clothing Clusters in China Social Network, Entrepreneurship and the Development of Industrial Clusters in Zhejiang Province The Local Government and the Development of Industrial Clusters in Zhejiang Province Ningbo Clothing Cluster Shaoxing Synthetic Fibre Cluster Yiwu Socks Cluster.

The dynamic role of small- and medium-sized multinationals in global production networks: Norwegian maritime firms in the Greater Shanghai Region in China

Abstract This article examines the role of small- and medium-sized multinational enterprises (MNEs) in the dynamic development of global production networks (GPNs) in the maritime industry. It studies the dynamism between subsidiaries of Norwegian maritime firms and regional actors and institutions in the Greater Shanghai Region of China from the perspectives of the subsidiaries. It argues that strategic coupling, recoupling and decoupling are partly the results of regional selection mechanisms. However, in the cases where the subsidiaries are embedded within the host region, the strategies and behaviour of MNEs are of decisive importance for the dynamic development of GPNs.

Global financial crisis and China’s pawnbroking industry

Abstract In most countries, pawnbroking is an intermediate financial instrument to help private households or individuals meet their short-term and urgent consumption needs. In China, due to market imperfection and institutional discrimination against the small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by commercial banks and other formal financial institutions, pawnbroking has been used as a supplementary financing source for SMEs and private entrepreneurs when they cannot get access to bank credits or other financial sources such as usury (underground money shops). This paper uses first-hand survey data in 2009 in Zhejiang Province, China’s pioneering region for pawn business, and secondary data for the whole country during 2004–12, to understand the special characteristics of the pawnbroking industry and explain why it has become a viable and useful financing instrument in China. It also explains the puzzle of a serious setback and widespread losses in the industry during the world financial crisis. A corporate financing model of SMEs is developed to explain the substitution relationship between formal bank credits and pawnbroking. It suggests that the stimulus plan implemented by the central government of China during the global financial crisis reduced the borrowing cost and lowered the access barrier of bank credits to SMEs, leading to a temporary setback of an otherwise rapidly growing pawnbroking business in 2008 and 2009. However, as quantitative easing is gradually phased out after the global financial crisis, pawnbroking activities recover rapidly, implying that the industry will continue to play an important role in China’s economic development given its current financial system which is still unfriendly to the SME sector.

Ian Chaston, 'Entrepreneurial management in small firms' [book review]

ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION Vol 12, No 2, 2011 151 management structures and entrepreneurial education are particularly illuminating. Chapter six expands on the developing process model and discusses the concepts of entrepreneurial growth, strategy, managing resources, improving business process and leadership thinking, and there is also a section on the role of women in organized crime. Chapter seven deals with strategic planning for criminal entrepreneurship, written from a knowledge management perspective, and provides many useful examples of this perspective. The final chapter, chapter eight, sums up the importance of developing business-oriented models for understanding and investigating organized crime as crime knowledge. The utility of both books is that they span the artificial boundaries between legal and illegal entrepreneurship in an interesting and readable manner. Neither celebrates moral forms of entrepreneurship or romanticizes organized crime, and each makes a contribution by focusing on business processes, practices and procedures. Both have the potential to revolutionize how policing organizations and agencies tasked with interdicting serious and organized crime develop their long-term strategies. The books do have faults and flaws in logic too, however. The discussion of business concepts and the application and attribution of specific management labels such as ‘chief executive officer’ (CEO) to organized criminals such as Terry Adams and Curtis ‘Cocky’ Warren may offend disciplinary purists in both management and organized crime because the world view of the legitimate CEO differs considerably from that of the urban-bred criminal. They operate by different logic sets. Also, the case studies are presented at a narrative level as illustrations, and the message in many cases is left implicit. It is not clearly explained to readers how the narrative relates to theory, but then when one sacrifices readability for clarity, a very different book emerges. Notwithstanding these criticisms, the books have the potential to make a significant impact on how organized crime is policed in the twenty-first century, as well as impacting on theories of entrepreneurship!

The innovation of SMEs and development of industrial clusters in China

During the 1980s and 1990s, developing countries obtained more market share for some labour-intensive products than developed countries because of cost advantages. Subsequently, many export-oriented industrial clusters came into being in such countries. Most clusters of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are characteristic of labour-intensive, low-tech content and low entry barriers. However, most of these industrial clusters in developing countries had comparative advantage only in terms of low prices and failed to get into a position to enter mainstream international markets. In contrast, the industrial clusters in developed countries maintained competitive advantages in terms of quality, design capacity, technological innovation and rapid response to market changes (Zhu, 2003).