Yiyi Su

Principal-Principal Conflict in the Governance of the Chinese Public Corporation

By examining the level of ownership concentration across firms, we determine how principal-principal conflict, defined as the incongruence of ownership goals among shareholder groups in a corporation, impacts agency costs of Chinese boards of directors. Based on data from Chinese companies listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges during 1999-2003, we found that ownership concentration had a U-shaped relationship with board compensation, board size and the presence of independent directors. These results provide corroborating evidence that principal-principal conflict can lead to high agency costs.

High-performance work systems, dual stressors and ‘new generation’ employee in China

Abstract Received human resource management (HRM) studies have paid much attention to the relationship between high-performance work systems (HPWS) and employees’ attitudes and behaviours, but they lack deep understanding on how such HRM systems work for ‘new generation’ employees and accommodate ‘new generation’ preferences and characteristics. Embracing ‘new generation’ workforce characteristics, we collected two waves of data from 561 employees who were based in 23 Chinese firms. Our findings reveal that, first, HPWS is positively related to ‘new generation’ employees’ engagement; second, hindrance-related stressors partially mediate the relationship between HPWS and ‘new generation’ employee engagement, but the mediation role of challenge-related stressors is not evident; third, procedural justice negatively affects the relationship between HPWS and hindrance-related stressors; finally, HPWS and procedural justice jointly affect ‘new generation’ employee engagement partly through hindrance-related stressors. We conclude that the study not only contributes to the link between HPWS and employee engagement in a ‘new generation’ workforce context, but also argues for the importance of having occupational stress- management for a ‘new generation’ employee workforce.

Internationalization of Chinese banking and financial institutions: a fuzzy-set analysis of the leader-TMT dynamics

Abstract Received international business and international human resource management theories have generally reached a consensus on the important role of leader and top management teams (TMTs) in deciding and shaping the firm’s internationalization process. However, what remains unclear is how a well-functioning TMT is formed to effectively achieve the desired internationalization goal. Utilizing a unique sample of Chinese banking and finance institutions’ initial public offering overseas, this study explores how Chinese BFIs configure the leader-TMT dynamics to achieve high internationalization performance. Using a set-theoretic approach and the technique of fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis, a distinct taxonomy of the leader-TMT dynamics (namely, grass-root, strategic executor, born-global and glocal) is developed. Our findings provide novel insights into the IHRM variations within Chinese BFIs’ TMT formation, based on a theoretically and methodologically extended leader-TMT dynamics perspective.

Social contagion or strategic choice?: The interpersonal effects of emotions during Chinese negotiations

Purpose This paper aims to explore how Chinese negotiators’ positive and negative emotions affect value claiming during dyadic negotiations and examine the influence of these aroused emotions on the recipient as well as the antecedents and consequents of such reactions. Design/methodology/approach Using a simulated face-to-face negotiation between buyers and sellers, the authors conducted an experiment based on the manipulation of the sellers’ emotions. About 280 undergraduates participated in a simulated negotiation. SPSS20.0 statistical analysis software was used to test the hypothesis. Findings The results indicated that the sellers who demonstrates negative emotions claimed more value than happy sellers (direct effect), and the perceived power disadvantage mediated this effect. Moreover, buyers in the happy dyads displayed a higher evaluation of their guanxi (relationship). This experiment also indicated that the sellers’ emotions (happiness or anger) evoked a reciprocal emotion in the buyers, supporting the social contagion perspective. More importantly, as emotion recipients, the buyers’ reactions exerted further influence on the outcomes (ripple effect); specifically, in the happy dyads, the buyers’ positive emotional reactions were negatively related to their individual gains. Finally, the buyers with low agreeableness were more likely to display negative emotional reactions. Research limitations/implications Negotiators should have an understanding of how emotions may shape conflict development and resolution via direct and ripple effects. In general, during Chinese negotiations, expressing anger is an effective negotiation tactic that incurs the expense of damaged relationships with counterparts. Originality/value The findings validated the impact of emotions in the Chinese negotiation context. Further, the paper extended the research by demonstrating the influence of emotions on the recipients’ reactions. Both the direct and ripple effect provided evidence for adopting the strategic choice perspective during negotiations.

Have Firms Benefited More from R&D since the Economic Crisis?

Most existing research highlights the hardship that the economic crisis brought to firm R&D, although Perez (2002) points out the probability of a golden age being unleashed after the crisis. Based on a dataset of 52,638 company-years from 63 countries for the period 1986-2014, we provide the first empirical examination of Perez’s great surge model by investigating cross-firm, sector and country variations in changes of returns to R&D after the crisis. Our results show, after the crisis, (1) firms obtain more returns from R&D, and (2) low-market-share, low-leveraged and service firms increasingly enjoy a higher level of returns to R&D.