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The polynomial regression with response surface analysis (PRRSA) model is widely used in congruence studies, yet its application in congruence research has not achieved the desired theoretical progress in this research area. As part of the continuous efforts to advance congruence research, this study analyzes 31 congruence-related articles recently published in top-tier management journals, including

Background: Network structure is a critical issue for efficient interfirm knowledge sharing. The optimal node degree turns out to be decisive because it is generally regarded as a core proxy of network structural characteristics. This paper is to examine what is the optimal node degree for an efficient network structure. Methods: Based on an interaction rule combining the barter rule and the gift rule, we first describe and then build a knowledge diffusion process. Then using four factors, namely network size, network randomness, knowledge endowment of network, and knowledge stock of each firm, we examine the factors that influence the optimal node degree for efficient knowledge sharing. Results: The simulation results show that the optimal node degree can be determined along the change in outer factors. Furthermore, changing the network randomness and network size has little impact on node degree. Instead, knowledge endowment of network and knowledge stock of each firm both have significant impact on the node degree. Conclusion: We find that an optimal node degree can always be found in any condition, which confirms the existence of a balanced state. Thus, policymakers can determine the appropriate number of links to avoid redundancy and thus reduce cost in interfirm networks. We also examine how different factors influence the size of the optimal node degree, and as a result, policymakers can set an appropriate number of links under different situations.

While China has experienced an unprecedented growth over the past decades, sustainability has become a major concern for policymakers and management practitioners. Consideration has been given to the convergence of mass entrepreneurship and innovation as a new economic driver and sustainability as a long-term economic objective. The focus of China’s economic development has moved from a resource-based expansion to a more entrepreneurial and socially responsible one. This is a timely and critical topic that captures the increasing concerns over sustainability and Chinese firms’ increased responsibility under the new governmental initiatives in fulfilling their social mandates from stakeholders at different levels. It is also a rich area for academic research but still under studied in the Chinese context. More indigenous management research on corporate social responsibility is required to adopt Chinese perspectives in conceptualizing CSR-related problems and further formulating more contextualized CSR theories, the emergence of a new research horizon.

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate how a team leader’s conflict management style (CMS) affects team innovation performance (TIP) in entrepreneurial teams using a team emotion perspective. Design/methodology/approach It is proposed in this study that team passion mediates the impact of team leader’s CMSs on team performance, which is further moderated by team emotional intelligence (TEI). Then this study collected paired data from 105 teams including 105 team leaders and 411 team members to test the proposed model. Findings The results show that a team leader’s cooperative CMS has a significant positive impact on TIP and team passion further mediates the relationship between the team leader’s CMSs and TIP. The results also show that TEI moderates the relationship between the leader’s CMSs and team passion. Originality/value This study helps enriches the literature of conflict management by exploring the mechanisms through which a team leader’s CMSs affect team performance in entrepreneurial activities, and the findings of this study highlight the important role of team passion in this process. In addition, this study integrates the research on conflict management and the research on team passion in entrepreneurial teams to provide a new perspective to explore the dynamic process of entrepreneurial activities, which sheds light on the investigation of the important implications of effective conflict management in the entrepreneurship.

Platform enterprises have emerged as one of the most popular business models in the era of knowledge economy. The success of platform enterprises relies on continuous value creation by constructing an efficient platform and attracting more users to participate in order to create more value for the users and by the users. This study is to explore the key factors that drive value creation in platform enterprises’ ecosystem to help better understand the management of platform enterprises as the knowledge-based entrepreneurial ventures in emerging markets. This study employs a newly emerged method—a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to empirically analyze the antecedent configurations of value creation for Chinese platform enterprises. This method extends qualitative comparative analysis by integrating fuzzy-sets and fuzzy-logic principles with qualitative comparative analysis principles, which offers a more realistic approach. This paper identifies different configurations for high and non-high levels of value creation in platform enterprises. The results show that continuous user commitment is crucial to creating positive value for Chinese platform enterprises, and active user participation and knowledge sharing as well as platform construction/improvement are the key elements that determine the platform enterprises’ value creation process. The results also demonstrate a hybrid value creation logic with efficiency and innovation in platform enterprises. This study further identifies an asymmetric causality in the Chinese platform enterprises’ value creation process that is crucial for knowledge sharing and effective management of platform enterprises. The findings can shed light on the strategic management of platform enterprises for emerging markets.

PurposeThis field study aims to investigate the interactive relationships of millennial employee’s gender, supervisor’s gender and country culture on the conflict-management strategies (CMS) in ten countries (USA, China, Turkey, Germany, Bangladesh, Portugal, Pakistan, Italy, Thailand and Hong Kong).Design/methodology/approachThis exploratory study extends past research by examining the interactive effects of gender × supervisor’s gender × country on the CMS within a single generation of workers, millennials. The Rahim Organizational Conflict Inventory–II, Form A was used to assess the use of the five CMS (integrating, obliging, dominating, avoiding and compromising). Data analysis found CMS used in the workplace are associated with the interaction of worker and supervisor genders and the national context of their work.FindingsData analysis (N= 2,801) was performed using the multivariate analysis of covariance with work experience as a covariate. The analysis provided support for the three-way interaction. This interaction suggests how one uses the CMS depends on self-gender, supervisor’s gender and the country where the parties live. Also, the covariate – work experience – was significantly associated with CMS.Research limitations/implicationsOne of the limitations of this study is that the authors collected data from a collegiate sample of employed management students in ten countries. There are significant implications for leading global teams and training programs for mid-level millennials.Practical implicationsThere are various conflict situations where one conflict strategy may be more appropriate than others. Organizations may have to change their policies for recruiting employees who are more effective in conflict management.Social implicationsConflict management is not only important for managers but it is also important for all human beings. Individuals handle conflict every day and it would be really good if they could handle it effectively and improve their gains.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, no study has tested a three-way interaction of variables on CMS. This study has a wealth of information on CMS for global managers.

An increasing number of entrepreneurs have used crowdfunding to raise funds for their startups. While crowdfunding has attracted many entrepreneurs and investors, serial crowdfunding provides a new...

To better help resolve the dilemma of more demand for bank lending and increasing defaulted bank loans, this paper develops a pricing model on SMEs’ group lending practice using a gaming me...

Drawing on the institution theory and the resource-based view of the firm, we propose a contingent view on the relationship between host market's institutional environment, emerging multinational enterprises (EMNEs)’ capability, and their innovation performance in the internationalization process. Specifically, we examine three key aspects of host market's institutional environment: market maturity, intellectual property right protection, and cultural distance, to investigate their distinct impact on innovation performance. We further explore how the effects of institutional environment is contingent upon firm-specific absorptive capability. The analyses of a panel data of 735 Chinese EMNEs provide support for this contingent view, and the findings of this study thus can help advance our understanding of the internationalization process of EMNEs.

This is a cross-cultural study that explores the relationship between entrepreneurs’ social intelligence and firm performance in six countries (China, Malaysia, Bangladesh, France, Ireland, and Turkey). These firms were founded during the 7 years preceding the study. Data for this study were collected with questionnaires from three managers of each firm who rated their founding CEOs on social intelligence and performance of their firms. Data from each firm were averaged. Data analyses in each sample with structural equations models suggest that CEOs with greater social intelligence contributed more to firm performance in each country. Implications for management, directions for future research, and limitations of the study are discussed.

This study proposes a moderated mediating framework to describe the relationships among international diversification, technological capability, market orientation and emerging market multinational enterprises' new product performance. Within this framework, emerging market multinational enterprises' technological capabilities mediate the impact of internationalization on new product performance. This mediating effect is more salient for firms entering more developed markets than those entering less developed markets. Analysis of a sample of Chinese multinationals' internationalization process supports these relationships.

This study examines what factors contribute to firm innovation performance as a result of successful launch of new products in China. Rather than simply applying theories of product innovation ofte...

While ethical tourism is becoming more important in the tourist industry, relatively little is known about ethical tourism in China and what motivates Chinese tourists to undertake ethical tourism. This study examines this issue by adopting the planned behavior theory to explore the impact of Chinese tourists’ personal factors, positive social influence, image of destination and quality of services on their behavioral intentions in order to better understand what motivate Chinese tourists to participate ethical tourism. The results show that knowledge of ethical tourism, attitude toward ethical tourism, influences from family and friends, and local environment of the destinations are the key factors that drive Chinese tourists to undertake ethical tourism. In addition, service customization, service support and past experiences with ethical tourism are also important determinants of tourists’ satisfaction with ethical tourism, which further affects Chinese tourists’ intention to visit. Implications for ethical tourism marketing and management are then discussed with reference to how to promote more ethical tourism.

In today&rsquo, s highly uncertain environment, the value of creativity and innovation are increasingly critical. How individuals could improve their creativity and innovation performance has become the focus of attention. Future work self as an intrinsic motivation factor plays an important role in creativity and innovation. Based on the self-consistency theory, this study integrated proactive personality and informal field-based learning (IFBL) to explore the relationship between future work self and employee creativity to increase innovation performance. It used data from 201 R&amp, D department employees in China&rsquo, s high-tech companies. The results show that future work self has a positive effect on employee creativity and that IFBL mediates the relationship between future work self and employee creativity. This process is then positively moderated by a proactive personality. This study&rsquo, s results help clarify the formation mechanism of creativity from the perspective of intrinsic motivation and indicate that future work self can drive individuals&rsquo, creativity and innovation efforts, especially under the consistency of self-concept, motivation and personality. This research also emphasizes the importance of IFBL in improving individual creativity and further organizational innovation performance. Implications for theory and management to help improve creativity and innovation performance are then discussed in detail.

PurposeOverseas work experiences have played a critical role in venture creation and success, yet the impact of overseas work experience on returnee entrepreneurs’ venture capital funding in the Chinese market remains understudied. This paper aims to explore the impact of returnee entrepreneurs’ overseas experiences on their opportunities of venture capital funding in China to help better understand the potential benefits that overseas work experiences bring to emerging markets.Design/methodology/approachThe authors have conducted a two-year inductive field study to explore the impact of overseas experiences on Chinese returnee entrepreneurs’ funding in the Chinese market with in-depth interviews with returnee capital seekers (or the venture founders) and capital providers.FindingsThe results show that returnee entrepreneurs are more likely to succeed in acquiring financial resources for their new ventures if they skillfully present their overseas work experiences and international networks to manage the impression constructed by capital providers.Originality/valueThis research sheds light on how returnee entrepreneurs use impression management in external resource acquisition. It is clear that overseas experience has been regarded a symbol of personal capability closely associated with advanced knowledge and valuable human and social capital in the Chinese context. Resource holders appreciate such an association. The authors suggest that returnee entrepreneurs concerned about how to effectively acquire external resources should reflect upon the ways of presenting themselves to potential investors and fostering a positive image that encourages investors to commit to their ventures.

Since the outbreak of the novel Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) infected by SARS-CoV-2 at the end of 2019, clinical specific antiviral drugs have been lacking. A Chinese patent medicine called ‘Toujiequwen Granules’ has been promoted in the treatment of COVID-19. The present study was designed to reveal the molecular mechanism of Toujiequwen Granules against COVID-19. A network pharmacological method was applied to screen the main active ingredients of Tongjiequwen Granules. Network analysis of 149 active ingredients and 330 drug targets showed the most active ingredients interacting with many drug targets are quercetin., drug targets most affected by the active ingredients are PTGS2, PTGS1, and DPP4. Drug target disease enrichment analysis showed drug targets are significantly enriched in cardiovascular diseases, digestive tract diseases and so forth. An ‘active ingredient-target-disease’ network showed that 57 active ingredients from Toujiequwen Granules, interact with 15 key targets of coronary pneumonia. There are 53 ingredients that can act on DPP4, suggesting that DPP4 may become a potential new key target for the treatment of COVID-19. The GO analysis results showed that key targets were mainly enriched in the cellular response to lipopolysaccharide, cytokine activity and other functions. KEGG analysis showed they were mainly concentrated in viral protein interaction with cytokine and cytokine receptors endocrine resistance pathway, and others. These evidences suggest that Toujiequwen Granules might play an effective role through improving the symptoms of underlying diseases in patients with COVID-19 and multi-target interventions against multiple signaling pathways related to the pathogenesis of SARS-CoV-2.

PurposeEntrepreneurship research clearly documents the importance of human and social capital and stresses the way in which entrepreneurs take advantage of their own social affiliations and network strategies in pursuit of their entrepreneurial goals, yet the research on returnee entrepreneurs’ human and social capital is not sufficiently studied in the international context, in particular when returnees’ overseas human capital and social capital may be a misfit with local business environment. Using the data from Chinese returnee entrepreneurs’ venture activities in China, the purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of returnee entrepreneurs’ overseas capital (human and social) and domestic capital (human and social) on their venture performance in China, and further explore the interaction effect of different social and human capital with China’s entrepreneurial environment.Design/methodology/approachThis study surveyed 500 start-up businesses created by returnee entrepreneurs in China to collect data. Self-administered questionnaires were used to collect data on their demographic information, the information about the human and social capital of these returnee entrepreneurs, including domestic and overseas capital, various performance measures, and other control variables ending up with 226 usable questionnaires.FindingsThe results show that Chinese returnee entrepreneurs’ overseas human capital and social capital, as well as their domestic social capital, but not domestic human capital, have a significant impact on their venture performance. In addition, while domestic entrepreneurial environment does not affect the impact of overseas human and social capital on venture performance, it does provide an important contextual setting for domestic capital to improve returnee entrepreneurs’ venture performance.Originality/valueThe findings help enrich the understanding of the dynamic interplays among Chinese returnee entrepreneurs’ domestic human capital and social capital, overseas human capital, and social capital, as well as the entrepreneurial environment for returnee entrepreneurs’ success, which makes an important contribution to the international entrepreneurship theory by showing that overseas human capital and social capital are not a misfit with local markets. It also provides empirical support for the mediating effect of entrepreneurial opportunity identification. The important role of entrepreneurial opportunity is empirically supported in an international context: entrepreneurship is all about the discovery of entrepreneurial opportunities and exploitation of this opportunity to create viable business entities for new products and services, even in the Chinese context, a culture which is very different from the ones where the entrepreneurship theory was developed.

The past decade has seen impressive developments in financial technology (FinTech) in China. As a new technology and innovative method that competes with, and also supplements, traditional financial methods, fintech has had a significant impact on traditional financial businesses and has thus challenged the role of commercial banks as credit intermediaries in the financial sector. This paper examines the potential risks that fintech brings to commercial banks in China, and collects data from 19 systemically important banks from 2011–2020 to analyze the effect of fintech development on commercial banks’ financial risks in order to achieve sustainable development in the financial sector. Using the Z value and non-performing loan ratio as the criterion variables, this study shows that the impact of fintech on the financial risks of systemically important banks demonstrates an inverted U-shaped pattern, with the financial risk increasing first and then decreasing alongside the further development of fintech. The results also show that commercial banks’ responses to fintech development has been comparatively slow. Managerial suggestions are then discussed on risk supervision for commercial banks and the financial sector in China and other emerging markets.

Contemporary research on entrepreneurship has showed that social capital can improve the success rate of entrepreneurial activities, but focusing too much on social capital can also divert entrepre...

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the role of middle managers in the corporate entrepreneurship process that drives new capability development. Middle managers are highlighted as key entrepreneurial agents because of their special position in an organization.Design/methodology/approachThe paper draws on existing capability development and corporate entrepreneurship literature and develops a conceptual model and research propositions that are illustrated through three examples from a Chinese private firm.FindingsThis paper contends the dual role of middle managers, both as change implementers to follow pre-set rules of an existing corporate entrepreneurship system and as change initiators to bring new rules to improve the existing system.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper is conceptual in nature, advancing the understanding of middle managers’ role in corporate entrepreneurship. The paper provides directions for future empirical research.Practical implicationsThe interactions between middle managers and other organizational agents are discussed in the propositions. This paper suggests the importance of empowering middle managers to facilitate changes in complex internal environments.Originality/valueThe paper provides a unique theoretical contribution by introducing the interface-based, multi-level conceptual model of corporate entrepreneurship toward new capability development.

Purpose This study aims to explore the impact of well-educated young Chinese employees’ notions of work on their conflict management styles in the increasingly turbulent workplace to help better manage work-related conflict in the time of transition in China. Design/methodology/approach Self-administered questionnaires were used to collect data from over 400 young Chinese employees. The data were first factor analyzed to explore the underlying dimensions of contemporary work notions in China’s transition period. Hierarchical regression analysis was then conducted to explore the relationship between dimensions of work notions and conflict management styles. Findings The results showed that well-educated young Chinese employees’ notions of work consisted of sense of control, fulfilling and rewarding, holistic concerns, personal growth and development and meaningfulness. The results further indicated that young Chinese employees with strong needs to satisfy individual interests in their work tend to use competitive methods to manage work-related conflicts, employees with strong needs to satisfy group interests in their work prefer to use collaborative methods and those who believe in collective efforts in achieving individual goals through group goals’ obtainment are more likely to use collaborative and compromising approaches. Originality/value This study provides a new perspective to manage work-related conflict in the Chinese context. The findings of this study are able to help enrich conflict management theories in China and suggest insightful conflict resolution approaches to work-related conflicts in China’s changing environment. This study also helps bridge the research gap between work notions and conflict management styles. The results of this study can greatly facilitate Chinese companies’ endeavors toward crafting a more innovative workforce and help improve employee performance in China’s transition to industrialization.

Based on the literature on relationship marketing and marketing channel research, this study proposes that in a channel relationship, interpersonal guanxi between boundary spanners of channel partners mediates the relationship between a firm's relationship marketing orientation and relational governance. Using the data collected from about 300 Chinese manufacturers and their suppliers, this study shows that relationship marketing orientation positively relates to relational governance, and boundary spanners' interpersonal guanxi mediates this relationship. Relational governance further affects channel partners' opportunistic behaviors. This study also discusses the findings' implications for marketing practitioners and suggestions for future research.