Call
for Papers
Management
and Organization Review
Special Issue on ‘Expanding
Research on Family Business in China’
Guest Editors:
Jess Chua, University of Calgary, Canada; Ling
Chen, Zhejiang University, China;
Bradley L. Kirkman, Texas A&M University, US;
Xin-chun Li, Sun Yat-Sen
University, China; Sara
Rynes, University of Iowa, US
Consulting Editor:
Luis Gomez-Mejia, Texas A&M University, US
Submission deadline: March
1, 2013
Privately-operated enterprises, as opposed to
state-operated enterprises, have been developing
in China since economic reform began in 1979.
Over this period, these firms have
become dominant contributors to social and economic
development in China. Most of
them are organized around the family, with the
family owning, governing, and/or managing
the businesses. This is perhaps partly due to
the long-lasting and deeply embedded
influence of Confucianism, which sees the family
as the fundamental organizing unit of
society. This focus on the family and its collective
interests has caused many observers to
characterize China as a collectivistic society
in which individuals strongly value in-group
relationships based upon kinship or other prescriptive
ties. But it may also be the case that,
due to the transitional nature of social, economic,
political, and legal institutions in China,
managerial opportunism is a more serious problem.
As a result, social capital developed
among family members and the unique ability
of the family to discipline its members cause
individuals to trust family members more than
they do non-family members.
Clearly, societal values, in combination with
institutional changes, for example, the
evolving concept of property rights and the
one child policy, will both provide new
opportunities and create unique challenges for
family firms in China. To date, however,
there has been relatively little consideration
of how societal values in combination with
institutional transitions are influencing the
development of the family-centered form of
business organization in China.
The purpose of this special issue of
MOR is to shed light on issues and challenges facing
family businesses in China. Interest in family
business research has increased rapidly over
the last decade as the academic community came
to appreciate the persistence and
ubiquity, even dominance within many national
economies, of the family-centered business
organization. Depending on how one defines the
family firm, they can account for up to
90% of all firms worldwide. Even in developed
economies, 44% of the publicly listed firms
in Europe and 33% of the S&P 500 in the U.S.
may be considered family firms. Thus,
research on family firms in general will help
us understand more about this important
contributor to social and economic life in both
developing and developed economies.
Addressing how societal values and institutional
changes in China interact to affect family
firms will greatly enhance our understanding
of the present and future role of family
businesses in the Chinese economy, which is
predicted to be the largest in the world by
2032. Research on the distinctive aspects of
family firms, such as the pursuance of noneconomic
goals, also has the possibility of enriching
the extant theories of the firm.
Potential Research Topics
We seek mainly manuscripts that report empirical
research, both quantitative and qualitative,
on family businesses in China. However, conceptual
papers that provide deep insight
into the Chinese context to explain management
practices and organizational actions of
family firms will also be considered. Studies
about family firms in other transitional
economies are acceptable in comparative studies
with firms in China. Studies of Chinese
family businesses worldwide also would fall
within the domain of this special issue if they
have implications for the globalization of family
firms in China. Thus, we invite submissions
that incorporate or address, but are not limited
to, the following research questions:
• The influence of Chinese culture and tradition
on family firms in China: For example,
what cultural dimensions
have had distinctive impacts on family businesses in China?
• Family firms in a transitional economy:
For example, what special challenges and opportunities
do the institutional transitions
in China pose for family firms?
• Corporate governance in family firms:
For example, how has corporate governance in family
firms adapted to the changing
institutional arrangements in China?
• Family business succession and leadership:
For example, what are the likely long-term
influences of the one-child
policy and property rights uncertainty on intra-family succession?
• Family entrepreneurship, innovation, growth,
and longevity: How will culture and institutions
interact with family involvement
to affect innovation, entrepreneurship, growth, and the longevity
of family firms in China?
• Family firm internationalization:
For example, how do the internal (e.g. family capital, generational
change, network) and external
factors (e.g., government regulations, competition, opportunity)
drive the internationalization
process of family firms in China?
• Mixed motives in family firms:
For example, do family firms in China balance economic and
non-economic goals differently
from Chinese family firms outside China?
• People management issues in family firms:
For example, how do family firm human resource
policies, organizational
identity, and employee identity influence employee commitment and performance?
Questions about the special issue may be directed
to any of the guest editors. Papers for
the special issue should be submitted electronically
through MOR’s
ScholarOne Manuscripts
site at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/mor
and identified as submission to the
‘Expanding Research on Family Business in China’
special issue. All submissions should
follow the ‘MOR
Author Guidelines’, available online at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/
journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1740-8784/homepage/ForAuthors.html
Special Issue Workshop
After the first round of double-blind reviews,
the authors of the most promising submissions
will be invited to a Special Issue Workshop
on ‘Expanding Research on Family Business in
China’ to be co-hosted by Zhejiang University
and Sun Yat-sen University and held in the
beautiful city of Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province,
China October 17-18, 2013. Partial travel
support for invited authors will be provided.
Guest Editors
Jess H. Chua
([log in to unmask]) is Professor of Finance and Family
Business Governance at the
Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary. He is also
the
Fotile (Fang Tai) Professor of Family Business at the School of Management of Zhejiang
University. Jess has co-edited two books plus
co-authored one monograph and more than
50 academic and professional articles on family
business. He was an associate editor of
Entrepreneurship Theory
and Practice and co-guest editor of eight special issues of
ETP on
Theories of the Family Enterprise.
Ling Chen
([log in to unmask]) is Professor of Family Business and Business History,
Associate Dean, and founding director of the
Institute of Family Business at the School of
Management, Zhejiang University. He has published
3 books and over 40 academic and
professional articles on family business in
Chinese and English. He is on the editorial board
of the
Journal of Family Business Strategy.
Bradley L. Kirkman
([log in to unmask]) is Professor and holder of the
Foreman R. and Ruby Bennett Chair in Business
Administration at Texas A&M University.
He has authored over 50 articles and book chapters
on topics such as cross-cultural
management, effectiveness of virtual teams,
cultural issues in global teams, and global
leadership. His articles have appeared in all
major journals including AMJ, AMR,
JAP, PP,
JoM,
and JIBS. He was an Associate Editor for
AMJ and is an editorial board member for
AMJ, JAP, PP, and Organizational
Psychology Review.
Xin-chun
Li ([log in to unmask]) is Professor of Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship
and director of the Chinese Family Firm Research
Centre at Sun Yat-sen
University, China. He is an advisory board member
of the IACMR, and a member of the
editorial advisory board for several Chinese
Journals. He has published over 60 academic
papers in Chinese and in international journals
such as the Management and Organization
Review
and the
Asia Pacific Journal of Management.
Sara
Rynes ([log in to unmask]) is the John F. Murray Professor of Management
and
Organizations at the University of Iowa. She
is a Fellow of the Academy of Management,
the American Psychological Association, the
Management Education Research Institute,
and the Society for Industrial and Organizational
Psychology. She received the Academy
of Management’s Herbert G.
Heneman Career Achievement Award for research in
Human Resource Management in 2006, the Society
for Human Resource Management’s
Michael R.
Losey Human Resource Research Award in 2011, the Ulrich & Lake Award
for Excellence in Human Resource Management
Scholarship in 2003, and the Moskowitz
Prize for the best quantitative research paper
in the field of social investment in 2004. She
was editor-in-chief of the
Academy of Management Journal from 2005-2007.
Luis R. Gomez-Mejia
([log in to unmask]) holds the Benton
Cocanougher
Chair in Business at Texas A&M University. Prior
to that, he was on the Council of 100
Distinguished Scholars, held the Arizona Heritage
Chair, and was a Regent’s Professor at
Arizona State University. He is a Fellow of
the Academy of Management, a recipient of the
Outstanding Alumni Award from the University
of Minnesota, and was awarded the title
of Doctor
Honoris Causa at Carlos III University (Spain). He has published more than 200
articles and 12 books in the area of human resources.
His research has been cited approximately
10,000 times and has received numerous awards,
including the ‘AMJ best paper’
award. During the past 15 years, much of his
research has focused on family firms. A recent
(2011)
Academy of Management Annals piece by Gomez-Mejia and colleagues summarizes this
stream of research.