Chinese Business Research Articles

A RHETORIC OF CHINA’S EXPLOITATION OF RELIGION IN WEST AFRICA

This paper attempts to deconstruct Chinese business agents’ exploitation of religion as an economic resource in West Africa. Focusing on three cases from Ghana sampled on YouTube, the paper argues that China’s religion project in Africa involves three rhetorical strategies. These are reverse proselytization, repackaging of African/Ghanaian Christian gospel songs, and enstoolment of Chinese as African chiefs. The analysis reveals that Chinese foreign workers employ this capitalist model based on the working hypothesis that the average African of the postcolonial/neocolonial epoch is economically vulnerable and yet passionately religious, and, thus, would look to religion for solutions. Implications of the findings are reported in the paper.

The Impact of “China-Central and Eastern Europe Cooperation” and “Belt and Road Initiative” on Sino-Albanian Relations

The end of WW II in 1945 did not usher in a new era of lasting peaceful environment but brought in confrontations between two opposite camps based on two different ideologies and value systems: One was US-led Western industrialized countries in favor of democratic systems; another was Soviet Union dominated Eastern Bloc countries upholding socialism. China and Albania belong to the latter camp, but split with the Soviet Union after the death of Joseph Stalin due to Nikita Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization stance. Subsequently, China and Albania forged an alliance against Soviet Union in 1950s until Albania fell out with China in 1978. Sino-Albanian Rapprochement was achieved in 1980s after the death of Enver Hoxha. Bilateral relations remained stable since and entered into a new phase symbolized by Chinese business engagement with the launch of China-Central and Eastern Europe Cooperation (China-CEEC) and “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI). The aim of this study is to evaluate the impact of the Chinese new initiative to Sino-Albanian relations.

CHINESE NEW YEAR CANDLE BUSINESS IN TANAH GOCAP TANGERANG

This article discusses Chinese ethnic culture in Lilin Ong business in Tanah Gocap, Tangerang. The author uses qualitative research methods, namely collecting data from the library, as well as observations and interviews with the owner of Lilin "Ong", namely Mr Antonius. Chinese New Year candles are a work of Chinese ethnicity which is considered a characteristic of cultural traditions and shows Chinese identity in Indonesia. Apart from that, the author also explains the Chinese business culture that Lilin Ong maintains. When carrying out ceremonies in Chinese cultural traditions, food is always offered, and candles are needed to perform the prayer.

The Impact of ESG Disclosure Quality on Sustainable Growth and Asset Pricing Efficiency in China's Industrial Sector

This research analyzes the impact of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) disclosure quality on listed industrial companies in China's sustainable development potential, stock pricing efficiency, and the moderating effects of firm size and ownership structure. Panel regression and moderating effect models are applied in the research to investigate the links using data from Bloomberg's ESG Disclosure Score and China Stock Market & Accounting Research (CSMAR) from 2010 to 2020. The findings reveal that quality ESG disclosures significantly enhance both sustainable growth and stock pricing efficiency, with larger firms showing a more substantial impact. However, state-owned enterprises demonstrate a weaker impact compared to private firms. These findings suggest that ESG disclosure quality can boost investor confidence in a firm's long-term growth potential, thereby attracting capital and enhancing the accuracy of asset pricing. This work facilitates in the comprehension of the function of ESG disclosures in the monetary markets and offers guidance to Chinese businesses, investors, and regulatory agencies.

Chairman's IT background and enterprise digital transformation: Evidence from China

This paper explores the impact of the chairman's IT background on the digital transformation of enterprise. We find that the chairman's IT background helps facilitate the digital transformation of enterprises. This effect is more pronounced in firms with more powerful chairmen and higher uncertainty in the firm's environment. Further evidence suggests that chairmen with IT career experience are more effective in leading the digital transformation of enterprises than chairmen with IT educational experience. This study contributes to the existing literature on the economic implications of a board chairman's personal attributes, offers insights into Chinese business leaders' IT practices.

Chinese Loan to Africa in the lens of Pragmatism Economics

This paper examined the reasons behind China’s decision to provide loans to African states, a group that had been traditionally been considered not creditworthy by MDBs. Utilizing a descriptive-explorative research method, primary to secondary data ranged from 1999 to 2022, and the framework of economic pragmatism, this paper analyzed and found some pragmatic implications. The findings concluded that China’s lending strategy was mostly motivated by a pragmatic approach aimed at gaining early access to African markets, securing vital natural resources, assisting Chinese corporations, and creating economic dependence. China’s loans were used to fund infrastructure projects, reducing logistics costs for Chinese businesses and diversifying foreign exchange reserves. This paper posited that China’s policy was driven by empirical facts, adaptiveness to global economic conditions, and a focus on concrete economic benefits, such as increasing imports from China and gaining access to natural resources. Therefore, this paper describes China’s efforts to strengthen its influence and obtain tangible economic advantages through its lending practices in Africa Keywords: Africa, China, Development Loan, Economic Gains, Political-Economy

Markets and the Development of Social Trust in the Everyday Politics of North Korea: Chinese Entrepreneurs’ Perspectives

ABSTRACT The growth of markets in North Korea has spurred discussion about the prospects for social change in the country. This article explores whether and how marketisation increases social trust among market participants and its implications for everyday politics in North Korea. We draw insights from the literature on social trust as well as empirical evidence from interviews conducted with Chinese business entrepreneurs operating in North Korea to better understand the relationship between market activity and trust in North Korea. We argue that market participants rely on a variety of strategies to navigate North Korea’s ambiguous political and economic climate. These strategies are often adopted to increase transparency, access information, reduce uncertainty, and resolve business disputes between parties. Ultimately, each of these strategies is linked to building trust among North Koreans. At the same time, the North Korean state has also inserted itself into trust networks to extract additional resources from markets and (re)establish political control. Thus, in the everyday politics of North Korea, participation in informal markets reflects socialisation into norms and behaviours that increase trust while simultaneously providing support to the state.

How to leverage flexibility-oriented HRM systems to build organizational resilience in the digital era: the mediating role of intellectual capital

PurposeThe main purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of flexibility-oriented human resource management (FHRM) systems on intellectual capital and organizational resilience. This study also examines the moderating effect of digital capability on the relationship between intellectual capital and organizational resilience.Design/methodology/approachData were collected from 219 Chinese businesses in the Yangtze River Delta region of China during the COVID-19 pandemic. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to verify the validity and reliability of the measurements, and hypotheses were tested using hierarchical regression.FindingsThe empirical results show that FHRM systems are positively correlated with intellectual capital and organizational resilience. Intellectual capital mediates the link between FHRM systems and organizational resilience. Moreover, digital capability serves as a positive moderator between intellectual capital and organizational resilience.Originality/valueFrom the perspectives of resilience theory, the resource-based view and the theory of dynamic capabilities, this study is among the first to identify the process mechanism by which FHRM systems affect organizational resilience through intellectual capital. Digital capability is introduced as a situational factor for understanding the effect of intellectual capital on organizational resilience, which provides new insights for further research.

RELATIONS BETWEEN TÜRKİYE AND CHINA IN THE CONTEXT OF BELT AND ROAD INITIATIVE: CHALLENGES AND PROSPECTS

The China Dream articulated by President Xi Jinping when he took office in 2012 guides China’s new Global Strategy, particularly the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) announced in 2013. Türkiye is also interested in this initiative and embraces it politically, with the idea that it will strengthen regional connectivity and thus increase commercial and economic gains. As a result, it completed many transportation projects on its route. However, Türkiye still faces a number of problems such as regional instability, security risks, lack of mutual trust and lack of robust guarantee mechanisms. On the other hand, Chinese businesses in Türkiye also face higher financing risk, strong competition and operational risks. In addition, there are other non-economic risks arising from politics, security and cultural differences. In this article, using SWOT analysis, the strengths and opportunities for Türkiye will be analyzed while the weaknesses and threats for BRI will be examined.

Transient entrepreneurs?: Chinese migrant small commercial businesses in South Africa

The influx and establishment of Chinese businesses across Africa have attracted considerable research attention in the last decade, focusing primarily on the larger (state-owned) businesses. By contrast, much less is known about small commercial businesses in terms of their investment motivations, operational conditions, and aspirations of the Chinese business owner-managers in the shopping malls that have emerged to serve such enterprises. This study fills this gap by drawing on interviews with 25 owner-managers of small Chinese shops operating in twelve shopping malls in South Africa. We found that most of them are lightly embedded in the country, due to the competitive nature of their business, language barriers, regulatory uncertainty and crime. At the same time, an inability to extricate themselves and find viable outlets for business elsewhere means that they remain negatively committed. However, a minority of enterprises were much more embedded; we explore the reasons behind this. The study contributes to extending the understanding of small-scale migrant entrepreneurs and embeddedness literature with policy implications.

The Effects of African Countries on Adopting Chinese Business Strategies

China’s business strategies have impacted many countries in the world with the global economy over the past three decades have significant economy impacts and political implications for African countries. This paper reviews the debate over whether these impacts on balance between positive and negative impacts for the continent of Africa and whether these strategies have impacted African countries how and in which ways, challenges and outcomes.

The Net Zero Emissions Decision Model of the Sustainable Path of Chinese Business Parks

Business parks account for 30% of China’s total carbon emissions. Exploring emissions reduction approaches for business parks is crucial to achieve a net-zero emissions target, as well as for achieving a representative example for all types of emissions entities. Business parks mainly adopt two types of emissions reduction approaches: energy-saving renovations and purchasing carbon reduction products. However, there are limited studies focusing on the optimal combinations of the two approaches for reaching net-zero emissions and evaluating the cost effectiveness. To find a feasible and quantified way to build net-zero business park, a comprehensive path decision model is proposed. The problem is broken down into two parts: the optimal carbon reduction portfolio and the optimal electricity saving were researched. For the optimal product portfolio, the Markowitz theory is employed to balance the risk of carbon reduction products with the expected cost. In the part of optimal electricity saving, considering a ten-year life cycle, the total cost includes renovation investment, carbon reduction products cost, and cost saving of electricity consumption reduction. Based on the energy consumption, technical, and price data, the combination of energy-saving renovations and carbon reduction products is optimized. The model suggests a business park can save 24% of energy consumption through renovation investment and purchase CCER as 66% of the carbon reduction product portfolio. Taking only purchasing carbon reduction products as a benchmark to assess economic efficiency, implementing an optimized level of energy-saving renovation is found to save 16% of the comprehensive cost for the life cycle required to achieve zero carbon emissions. This model provides a new comprehensive optimization idea that will help future parks make decisions to achieve zero-carbon emission targets.

The discursive construction of organizational legitimacy in higher education: Multimodal discourse analysis on Chinese business schools

Applying a Multimodal Discourse Analysis framework, this study focuses on university websites to explore how organizational legitimacy is constructed through discursive strategies. Our findings show that under authoritative administrative logic and market logic, universities construct two organizational identities: policy followers and product/service suppliers, and use exemplification and authorization strategies respectively through visual discourse to legitimate the identities. To avoid potential conflicts between the legitimacy claims associated with these two identities, universities apply a decoupling strategy to isolate the two identities, along with both explicit and implicit expressions, through the intertextuality between visual and verbal discourses. The constitutive characteristics of universities’ website discourse reveal the complexity of Chinese institutional context in higher education field and the constitutive influence of the institutional background on organizational discourse and legitimation strategies.

On the transparency of the credit reporting system in China

In recent years, credit reporting agencies are under pressure to reform themselves to reach higher levels of transparency. In this context, the critically considered digitally-implemented credit reporting system in China—the Chinese Social Credit System (SCS)—is of particular interest. Compared to traditional credit reporting systems, the SCS has a wider range of goals, including enhancing social control, establishing a state-defined notion of trustworthiness and increasing market efficiency. It covers not only Chinese citizens, companies, and organizations but also foreign ones which have activities in or with China. This paper studies the transparency of the SCS from the perspective of foreign organizations. We conducted interviews with employees from German organizations that are engaged in commercial activities in or with China to understand how transparent the SCS is to them and to gather their perceptions about the role of the system in increasing the transparency of the Chinese business landscape. Our analysis of the interviews showcased an interesting contrast between reservations with respect to the system’s transparency and the belief that the SCS would enhance the transparency of the Chinese business landscape. Drawing on our analysis of the interviews, we discuss factors affecting SCS transparency and the role of the SCS in increasing corporate transparency. We further highlight that there are inherent limits when credit rating systems (such as the SCS) aim to provide transparency about market participants, while pursuing other objectives at the same time.

Data Driven Decision Making in Manufacturing Businesses in China and Asia Pacific

The objective of this study is to investigate the mechanisms of Big data - based business model development in Chinese standard industries. Deductive reasoning as well as case analysis were employed to evaluate manufacturing businesses in China and confirm the devices. This process created an integrated framework with 3 components: Business model perspectives, processes together with big data driven company model advancements. Three Chinese businesses put the framework on revealing that business model development is a constant and growing process impacted by big data. Nevertheless, the study shows that limitations have a small sample size, that is typical in qualitative studies. Ideally, businesses will develop a solid infrastructure that combines the internet of things, traditional manufacturing methods and front end buyers. Furthermore, management must make sure that their organizational structure, climate, and human resources are well prepared for the transformation.

Negotiating China's rise: The dynamics of Chinese business associations and the Belt and Road Initiative in Brunei Darussalam

With an increasingly assertive China and the intensifying influence of the Sinocentre, Chinese overseas who have access to Chineseness can exercise their agentic power in using their cultural capital for economic gains. Beijing has recognised the potential for diasporic Chinese entrepreneurs to contribute to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) given their influence in Southeast Asia's economy. Correspondingly, these entrepreneurs hail the BRI as a strategic opportunity for them to turn their cultural capital into fiscal capital. Considering the increased global connectivity and new Chinese migration geographies led by the BRI, this article examines the case of Chinese business associations in Brunei Darussalam. The heterogenous responses of these ethnic Chinese and their associations to China and the BRI attest to the multiplicity and contestations of Chineseness based on different migration histories and sentiments to their ancestral land. We focus on the dynamics between the old Chinese Bruneian business elites and the more recent Chinese business migrants from Malaysia and China. An investigation of the cultural and economic politics within the Chinese Bruneian business community will provide insights into the modality of Chineseness as an economic asset that can be tactically used by diasporic Chinese entrepreneurs to maintain their social position and to respond to China's economic rise.

Unravelling the intertwined nexus of firm performance, ESG practices, and capital cost in the Chinese business landscape

Unravelling the intertwined nexus of firm performance, ESG practices, and capital cost in the Chinese business landscape

Features and Trends of Chinese Management Style in the New Economic Era

According to historical environment and national policies in different periods, Chinese business managers have gradually explored and formed management capabilities in accordance with market needs. Chinesestyle management has been established, based on the characteristics of Chinese society and the specific conditions of Chinese enterprises, applying China’s excellent philosophy to business management.It absorbsglobal scientific management concepts and forms a management model with Chinese characteristics. Chinese style management have gradually influenced the development of world management. It is of great significance to study Chinese style management.Studying the formation of Chinese style management is not only to examine and analyze its own development process, but also to deeply explore the characteristics of Chinesestyle management and provide new ideas for management models for companies in other countries.This paper analyzes the reasons and characteristics of the formation of Chinesestyle managementand puts forward suggestions for the development trend of Chinesestyle management through comparative analysis and SWOT analysis.

Barriers to green human resources management (GHRM) implementation in developing countries: evidence from China.

Because of the current climate adaptation and long-term viability advancements, campaigners both locally and globally are pressuring businesses to embrace green practices. But there are challenges to putting green policies into action. The goal of this research was to analyze the most significant challenges encountered by Chinese businesses when attempting to implement environmentally responsible HR practices (GHRM). There were seventeen setbacks found, and these were sorted into five main groups. In order to pilot test the survey questions, we spoke with twenty experts in the fields of human resources and environmental management. One hundred and ninety-nine questionnaires were subsequently distributed to a random sample of company CEOs (19), HR managers (30), CFOs (30), and HR directors (40). The PSI approach was used to establish a hierarchy of the most significant obstacles and their subobstacles. Twenty-three percent of GHRM barriers in the research area were attributable to economic factors. The absence of financial resources emerged as the most crucial obstacle overall (with a score of 0.99) and among the subbarriers. The second most common barrier was found to be political and regulatory (20.1%), while the least common was found to be cultural and educational (18.2%). Government and financial institutions can help businesses overcome the most significant obstacles by offering low-interest loans for the development and implementation of sustainable business strategies and initiatives. As such, this study complements the current body of literature on green HR. Examining the challenges faced when trying to put GHRM into practice in a poor country context, this helps policymakers and practitioners in China and other similar economies understand environmental innovation barriers and develop policies to overcome them.

The Research Productivity Configurations of Chinese Business Academics at Different Career Stages

The Research Productivity Configurations of Chinese Business Academics at Different Career Stages