Qihai Huang

The development of industrial clusters and public policy

This paper assesses the relationships between public policy and the development of industrial clusters. A conceptual model of the relationship between public policies and the development of industrial clusters is developed and tested using data from 43 European industrial clusters. The results indicate that most government policies have no significant impact on the growth of industrial clusters or for the development of co-operation within industrial clusters. There is limited evidence that packages of government policies that are specifically geared towards improving the local asset base are effective in overcoming obstacles to growth of industrial clusters. However, when age is used as a control variable the weak relationship between policy packages and growth of industrial clusters disappear. The results indicate that individual and packages of public policies are not strongly connected to either high levels of co-operation, or high growth in industrial clusters. Moreover, no clear evidence was found that high levels of co-operation were associated with growth in industrial districts. In the light of the failure to find clear-cut associations between public policies and the development of industrial clusters the paper outlines a research agenda to help to increase our understanding of these issues.

The transfer of organizational practices: a diachronic perspective from China

Extensive research has been undertaken on the transfer of organizational practices by multinational firms (e.g. Morgan, Kristensen and Whitley 2001; Ferner, Quintanilla, and Sánchez-Runde 2006). However, little investigation has assessed the role that time plays in this process. The commonplace theoretical assumption is that as their overseas subsidiaries become more embedded in the local environment they increasingly take on the practices that prevail locally (Rosenzweig and Nohria 1994; Farley, Hoenig and Yang 2004). There have, though, been few longitudinal studies that would allow the veracity of this assumption or its implications to be assessed; most studies provide one-off, synchronic ‘snapshots’ of organizations. Drawing upon research conducted at a UK-owned retail firm in China between 1999 and 2005, this paper provides a diachronic perspective that can trace emergent trends. Data are derived from mixed methods: 140 interviews with expatriate managers and local staff from all levels of the hierarchy, a three month period of ethnographic research and a total of 305 survey questionnaires. Comparison between findings from the more recent research and those based upon the earlier research suggests that time does play a role in affecting transplanted organizational practices. We report that in some respects the organizational practices of the firm in question increasingly took on more of the ‘colour’ of those that prevailed in the host environment. However, convergence with local practices was far from total, some practices bear increasing resemblance to the firms parent country operation. We also caution that it is difficult to disentangle the isomorphic influence of the passage of time from factors such as the rapid withdrawal of expatriate managers from the operational level and the impact of the firms rapid expansion across China. Moreover, we suggest that the local–global dichotomy, upon which much of the convergence–divergence debate rests, is perhaps increasingly problematic.

Informal institutional constraints and their impact on HRM and employee satisfaction: evidence from China's retail sector

This paper seeks to assess whether informal institutions can affect human resource management practices. Specifically, we examine whether the social norm of respect for authority, an important informal social institution in countries like China, constrains employee participation, and whether this affects employee satisfaction in foreign-invested and state-owned retailers in China, respectively. Data are derived from questionnaires completed by almost 1900 employees at 22 foreign-invested and state-owned retail stores in nine Chinese cities. We indicate that a norm such as respect for authority can operate as a constraint on human resource management practices such as employee participation with related impacts upon satisfaction levels in foreign-invested and state-owned retailers, but that these play out in unexpected ways.

Social expectations, gender and job satisfaction: Front-line employees in China's retail sector

This study aims to enhance our understanding of gender and employment in China. Analysing data collected from over 1,800 employees at 22 foreign-invested and locally owned retail stores in eight Chinese cities, it firstly explores whether, like their counterparts in Western countries, female employees have higher levels of job satisfaction than their male colleagues. Secondly, it distinguishes the key differential predictors of female and male employees’ job satisfaction levels. This article extends gender role theory on job satisfaction by showing how traditional values, the structure of work and a nation’s dominant gender ideology combine to shape women and men’s job satisfaction and work experiences in a transitional context.

Job demands–resources: a gender perspective on employee well-being and resilience in retail stores in China

Abstract Organisational resilience can be promoted through human resource management (HRM) practices that enhance individual employees’ well-being and ability to cope with adversity. However, the extant literature tends to neglect the influence of gender on employee well-being and resilience. Shop floor employees in retail stores often undertake demanding roles, characterised by considerable pressure and low pay, and attendant high levels of employee turnover. Drawing on the job demands–resources model, by analysing data collected from 697 employees at foreign-invested retail stores in China, this paper found that workload and employee participation in decision-making had a similar impact on the well-being of both male and female employees. However, the impact of job security and emotional demands on employees differed by gender. This paper extends the job demands–resources model by articulating the influence of gender on employee well-being. Additionally, its empirical insights, drawn from an emerging economy context, enable a contribution to the literature on employee well-being and resilience. Relevant implications for HRM and resilience are discussed.

Obstacles, Networking Approaches and Entrepreneurial Network Changes

While recent work has considered network change, little is known about how certain factors determine such changes. This study focuses on two factors – the type of obstacles entrepreneurs face and their networking approach – and employs a two‐stage research design and network visualisation approach to capture entrepreneurs’ experiences in managing networks during their entrepreneurial journey. Using an inductive approach, the first stage of the study identifies the obstacles and networking approaches that influence different types of network changes. The second stage employs a deductive approach to test the hypotheses developed from the first stage using a larger sample. We find that in experiencing obstacles from internal sources, entrepreneurs are more likely to find support from weak ties while strong ties are beneficial for overcoming obstacles from external sources. In having difficulties in acquiring entrepreneurial knowledge and skills, entrepreneurs are more likely to develop a low‐density network consisting of many structural holes. Conversely, dealing with difficulties in accessing market and resources imposes over‐reliance on high‐density network. Furthermore, the entrepreneurs’ networking approaches also influence network changes and partially mediate the relationship between the networks and the obstacles they face.

Why are some graduate entrepreneurs more innovative than others? The effect of human capital, psychological factor and entrepreneurial rewards on entrepreneurial innovativeness

Abstract This study investigates the innovation behaviour of graduate start-ups at the individual level. It bridges the graduate enterprise literature and innovative entrepreneurship literature to put forward three arguments that ascertain why highly educated graduate entrepreneurs are not always innovative in starting new businesses. First, anchoring on the individual opportunity costs–entrepreneurial rewards nexus, it argues that graduate entrepreneurs will exploit opportunities innovatively if they expect the levels of entrepreneurial rewards that match their high human capital and high opportunity costs. Second, it is argued that entrepreneurial innovativeness is conditional on psychological factors such as students’ managerial self-efficacy and overconfidence. Third, it is also argued that the nonlinear relationship between entrepreneurial innovativeness and entrepreneurial rewards will drive graduate entrepreneurs to exploit even riskier opportunities in search for high rewards. This study operationalizes the theoretical framework with an empirical model and estimates it using a graduate entrepreneur sample from a questionnaire survey in China. Our results suggest that innovation behaviour of graduate start-ups is influenced by the quantity of human capital, psychological make-up and expectations of entrepreneurial rewards.

Employment security and employee organizational citizenship behavior: does an ‘iron rice bowl’ make a difference?

Abstract Empirical evidence linking employment security to organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) is equivocal. Limited research has considered the effect of employment status. Using data from 217 subordinate–supervisor dyads in a large state-owned enterprise in China as basis, our research found significant association between overall perceived employment security and employee OCB. However, this relationship may vary depending on employment status. Further analysis suggested a curvilinear relationship for permanent employees with an ‘iron rice bowl’ (lifetime employment) and a linear relationship for contractual employees without an ‘iron rice bowl’. Our study contributes to a thorough understanding of the relationship between employment security and positive behaviors in terms of OCB by integrating the literature on social exchange, psychological contract, and proactive behavior.

Entrepreneurship in China

China has grown to become the world’s second largest economy in merely three decades and entrepreneurship has been identified as a key driver of China’s fast growth (Huang 2010). The China Surveys of Global Entrepreneurship Monitor in the last fifteen years consistently indicate the country’s high rate of entrepreneurship. Furthermore, China has been in transition from the predominance of necessity-based entrepreneurship to that of opportunity-based entrepreneurship since the mid-2000s. In the meantime, more Chinese entrepreneurs have started setting their sights on business internationalisation. Against the backdrop of a thriving entrepreneurial economy, China has also been experiencing economic slowdown, increase in inequality and worsening environmental problems since the turn of the century. While entrepreneurship has certainly offered solutions to the economic, social and environmental challenges the country is facing, entrepreneurship may also arguably be part and parcel of those problems in the first place. A recent bibliometric review of Chinese entrepreneurship research using the Social Science Citation Index and Chinese Social Science Citation Index databases over the past 10 years finds that scholars of Chinese entrepreneurship research often use similar theories (e.g. institutional theory and resource-based view of the firm) and follow similar quantitative methods and approaches (Su, Zhai, and Landström 2015). Moreover, Chinese management research is found to often focus more on ‘general theories’ and pay less attention to contextual variables (Meyer 2007). Yet, the Chinese context for entrepreneurship is unique and current theories arguably do not fully account for what appears to us to be a fascinating context. For example, institutions and business environment are not viewed as ‘friendly’ to private entrepreneurs and businesses (Huang 2010). The ‘re-emergence’ of entrepreneurship is ‘a history of struggle to overcome opposition and obstruction, to survive and grow’ (Huang 2003, 101), including ‘rule ambiguities’ (Atherton and Newman 2016), rent-seeking (Dong, Wei, and Zhang 2016), subsidies (Du and Mickiewicz 2016), and institutional constraints such as industrial barriers, difficulties in getting access to critical resources and weak property rights (Zhou 2011). Unpacking how entrepreneurs remove such institutional barriers is essential to understanding entrepreneurship in China (Ahlstrom and Ding 2014). Furthermore, cultural and institutional forces can moderate the behaviour of entrepreneurs in emerging economies like China from social psychological and organizational behaviour perspectives (Bruton, Ahlstrom, and Obloj 2008). However, while national culture and nation-wide

Conformity or Divergence? Family Goals, Legitimacy, and R&D Investments in Chinese Family Firms

Although family business research emphasizes the importance of family goals in family firms, Theory and evidence on the relationships between family influence, family goals and strategic behavior a...