Chinese Technology Companies Research Articles

Employee relations, enterprise culture, and employer branding in Chinese technology companies: Basis for innovative talent acquisition framework

Employee relations, enterprise culture, and employer branding in Chinese technology companies: Basis for innovative talent acquisition framework

Organizational support, identity and innovation climate: Basis for employees’ innovative behavior framework in Chinese technology companies

Organizational support, identity and innovation climate: Basis for employees’ innovative behavior framework in Chinese technology companies

Research on Relationship Between Governance Structure and Corporate Performance of Chinese Technology Companies

In the post-pandemic age of 2023, the economy is in recovery. Despite the distinctive qualities of technology firms, such as quick development and high levels of innovation, they face problems such as economic downturns and funding issues. As a result, the corporate governance structure is critical to guaranteeing the firms' long-term viability. The purpose of this article is to examine 252 publicly traded technology companies and investigate the link between corporate financial performance and corporate governance arrangements. This article used Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) analysis to look at the link between board independence, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) duality, ownership concentration, and return on equity (ROE). The regression findings indicate a negative association between ROE and the proportion of independent directors. However, there is no substantial association between the duality of ROE and the CEO, and ROE has a U-shaped relationship with ownership concentration. The study's findings imply that corporate executives and regulators should adopt an effective monitoring mechanism to ensure the impartiality and reliability of independent directors' oversight. To ensure strong financial performance, organizations should maintain appropriate levels of independent director percentages and stock concentration.

Hybrid working from home improves retention without damaging performance

Working from home has become standard for employees with a university degree. The most common scheme, which has been adopted by around 100 million employees in Europe and North America, is a hybrid schedule, in which individuals spend a mix of days at home and at work each week1,2. However, the effects of hybrid working on employees and firms have been debated, and some executives argue that it damages productivity, innovation and career development3–5. Here we ran a six-month randomized control trial investigating the effects of hybrid working from home on 1,612 employees in a Chinese technology company in 2021–2022. We found that hybrid working improved job satisfaction and reduced quit rates by one-third. The reduction in quit rates was significant for non-managers, female employees and those with long commutes. Null equivalence tests showed that hybrid working did not affect performance grades over the next two years of reviews. We found no evidence for a difference in promotions over the next two years overall, or for any major employee subgroup. Finally, null equivalence tests showed that hybrid working had no effect on the lines of code written by computer-engineer employees. We also found that the 395 managers in the experiment revised their surveyed views about the effect of hybrid working on productivity, from a perceived negative effect (−2.6% on average) before the experiment to a perceived positive one (+1.0%) after the experiment. These results indicate that a hybrid schedule with two days a week working from home does not damage performance.

Lulu Chen (2022). Influence Empire: Inside the Story of Tencent and China’s Tech Ambition

This book also describes how few Chinese technology companies are prepared to transform into giant technology companies in the future.

Принципы американского подхода к КНР: идеология и борьба за влияние

The article analyzes the principles that determine the US policy towards the PRC in terms of ideological confrontation and struggle for the influence in the Indo-Pacific region. It is noted that such features of the Chinese political system as rule by law, autocracy and state-directed mercantilism are seen as its vulnerabilities. The U. S. competitive approach to the PRC is focused on exacerbating and exploiting them. China’s economic slowdown is expected to make the CCP uncertain of its own legitimacy and force the party to rely on authoritarian practices of social control to maintain political power. This, in its turn, will provoke social discontent and decrease support for the party among the population. Restrictions on Chinese technology companies and tightening of the counterintelligence regime against Chinese undergraduate and graduate students studying at U.S. universities are intended to impede China’s access to advanced technologies and developments. Beijing’s actions, interpreted as authoritarian practices, are used by Washington to rally allies and partners on the ideological basis and to justify sanctions. These actions include the re-education policy in Xinjiang, the Hong Kong policy, export of Chinese technological systems and internal control practices to the Indo-Pacific countries, and others. It is indicated that this approach was countered by the Washington’s right to free access to information and policy to protect Internet freedom. In the real world, it aims to undermine state control over information in countries that import Chinese practices of social control. The key role in implementing this approach is assigned to systems that will circumvent Internet traffic restrictions both in the Indo-Pacific states and in China itself. The U. S. approach to defense and security in the Indo-Pacific region focuses on the transition from a hub-and-spoke system to federated defense. It is recognized that while the federated approach initially focused on the U.S. allies, Washington is now integrating its regional partners as well. There are two stages in the implementation of this U.S. defense strategy. During the first stage, Washington creates separate elements of the future military alliance which still function as independent units. Such elements are represented by minilateral coalitions that are formed of states that have comparable or complementary capabilities in spheres that are key to China’s deterrence. These include AUKUS focused on building nuclear submarines, the upcoming trilateral alliance of Japan, South Korea, and the United States in missile defense, QUAD, and others. During the second stage, it is probably intended to unite the established coalitions under a single defense structure. It is pointed out that Washington’s choice in favor of this two-stage scheme is due to the need to refrain at the current stage from actions that would provoke the states of the region to choose a side between the United States and China, which would be inevitable in the case of creation of a full-fledged U.S. military alliance in the Indo-Pacific. It is noticed that the Biden administration effectively counters Beijing in international organizations. It has largely succeeded in frustrating China’s strategy to dominate them and in transforming them from within.

Mapping U.S.-China technological “decoupling”: Beyond U.S.-China relations

As a global phenomenon of political and economic geography, a partial “decoupling” of U.S. and Chinese technology ecosystems is well under way. It should be noted that the biggest manifestation of this decoupling is the U.S. crackdown on Chinese technology companies. The U.S. government has placed over 1000 Chinese firms on the Entity List, Unverified List, Chinese Military firms Sanitations List, and NS-CMIC as a representative action to stifle the Chinese technology industry. The spatial patterns of the technological decoupling between China and the United States can be summed up by looking at the spatial distribution of blacklisted firms. Beyond China, the United States largely works to prevent China from forging indirect business links with U.S. high-tech companies through its allies (for example, the United Kingdom). Core cities like Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen in China, which are also hubs for Chinese high-tech businesses, are the major targets of industrial suppression in the United States. The U.S.-China rivalry will continue to shape the global economic geography in the future.

The Sustainability of Technological Innovation in China: From the Perspective of Network Relationships

Sustainable technological innovation is a key factor for companies seeking competitive advantage. Against the backdrop of the Sino-US trade war, the US government has been severely impeding Chinese enterprises’ technological innovation with its trade policies. Consequently, how to ensure the sustainability of technological innovation is a huge challenge for Chinese enterprises. In the Chinese context of a relationship-based society, network relationships have been instrumental in the process of technological innovation. This study constructs a theoretical model, with market dynamics as the moderator, exploring the impact of three dimensions of network relationships (network relationship selection, network relationship maintenance, and network relationship utilization) on sustainable technological innovation via an empirical analysis of 208 Chinese technology companies. The results of this study indicate that network relationship selection, network relationship maintenance, and network relationship utilization have a positive effect on sustainable technological innovation. Furthermore, the moderating effect of market dynamics on the association between network relationships and sustainable technological innovation is also confirmed. This study contributes to resource-based theory and dynamic capability theory by demonstrating how network relationships influence sustainable technological innovation in varying market dynamics. This study provides a better understanding of the role of network relationships in sustainable technological innovation and suggests that managers should pay attention to the selection, maintenance, and utilization of network relationships in order to achieve sustainable technological innovation. Additionally, managers should also consider market dynamics when making decisions related to network relationships, as they can have a significant impact on sustainable technological innovation.

Challenges to Transatlantic Cohesion in the Context of US-China competition

The intensification of US-China competition has led the United States to focus on consolidating its position with European allies on China by leveraging its negotiating power. Currently, there are indications of convergence between the US and its European allies on the Chinese threat, as well as practical examples of coordination of approaches in specific areas of interaction. These include joint restrictions on cooperation with Chinese technology companies and the development of export control measures. However, one of the challenges to cohesion may be the different interpretations of the prospects for interaction with China, as well as a shift in the balance of negotiating power among participants

The depoliticization of law in the news: BBC reporting on US use of extraterritorial or ‘long-arm’ law against China

ABSTRACT In this paper we explore how a public national media outlet, the British BBC, represents an international legal case which has a highly political nature. The case is US versus Huawei/Meng Wanzhou, which took place between 2018 and 2021. Accusations were that the Chinese technology company committed fraud, leading the global HSBC bank to breach US sanctions against Iran. The charges were made by the US using what is called an ‘extraterritorial law’, which, while rejected as law by governments around the world, is policed by US economic powers and control over international finance. Using Critical Discourse Analysis we show that, while the BBC presents much detail of legal process, the actual nature of the law the US uses to bring criminal charges against international companies and banks, is neither considered nor questioned. Our interest is how such a law, which has a huge influence over global trade and politics, is presented to the public in this particular case. We contribute to the position that the nature of laws, how they are used and known, must always be understood within the prevailing discourses of the moment.

Chinese Investment in Turkey: The Belt and Road Initiative, Rising Expectations and Ground Realities

Turkey’s inclusion in the Belt and Road Initiative in 2015 has raised the expectations of Turkish businesses and government concerning growth-generating investment from China. Existing studies on Chinese investments in Turkey lack sufficient data on the volume of investment, types of firms, and sectoral composition. Based on a novel dataset of Chinese investments in Turkey, this article contributes to filling this gap. We show that although Chinese investment in Turkey has increased considerably in recent years, it remains quite modest compared with investments from the West. Moreover, despite the expanding activities of Chinese technology companies, more than half of Chinese investment in Turkey consists of low value-added manufacturing, extraction of raw materials, and marketing of Chinese products. Overall, the developmental potential of Chinese investment in Turkey has not been radically different from other countries’ investments.

Decoupling from China: how U.S. Asian allies responded to the Huawei ban

ABSTRACT As the U.S.-China strategic rivalry has intensified, Washington has looked to its close allies and partners to counter Chinese clout in global technology leadership. With the Huawei ban as a proxy for the U.S.-China competition, the paper focuses on the concept of the alliance halo and analyzes how the three key U.S. allies in Asia—Australia, Japan, and South Korea—responded to Washington’s expectations of mutual support on the decoupling of Chinese technology companies from global supply chains. We argue that given that the Huawei ban is about future risks associated with China’s economy, as opposed to demonstrated military threats, it was more challenging to establish allied reliability within the U.S. alliance network as a whole. Our comparative analysis shows that Australia’s reactions have been the most direct, banning Huawei before the United States, showing a contrast with South Korea’s relatively muted responses. Japan’s decision to ban Huawei was as decisive as Australia’s but Tokyo sought to keep a low profile. Rather than the diplomatic pressure from the Trump administration, these allies’ varied responses resulted from their own assessments of security risks associated with Huawei.

Transnational State-Corporate Symbiosis of Public Security: China’s Exports of Surveillance Technologies

Over the last two decades, the emerging Chinese Party-state has used commercial ties with North American and European providers of surveillance technologies to grow national prowess of public security, fostering a transnational state-corporate symbiosis. The exports of surveillance technologies from the Global North to China started in the late 1970s, and now Chinese technology companies are competing with and replacing those suppliers in the globalized neoliberal market. This research explores the two-way dynamic of China’s state and private surveillance capacity underscored by international companies’ profit-seeking behaviors and domestic technological and economic growth. Four case studies of companies from Canada, China, and the US are used to highlight the changing dynamics in the global circulation of surveillance technologies. Particular attention is paid to the cyclical nature of such technologies through which unresolved issues of global governance continue to emerge and, accordingly, support the growth of technology-powered authoritarianism worldwide.

Do Targeted Trade Sanctions Against Chinese Technology Companies Affect US Firms? Evidence from an Event Study

AbstractThis article asks how costly targeted trade sanctions imposed by the US government are for domestic firms. I argue that, as a result of sanctions, the firm value of US companies that have supply relationships with sanctioned entities is likely to suffer from lost revenue, reputational damage, and business model uncertainty. I test this expectation by applying an event study to the important case of targeted trade sanctions against Chinese technology companies. I find that sanctions against these companies reduced their US suppliers’ risk-adjusted stock returns by 220 basis points. Firm-level cross-sectional analysis shows that businesses with stronger ties to the sanctioned entities are more negatively affected, which supports the direct connection between sanctions and relevant suppliers. Measuring the domestic economic ramifications of sanctions for the sender country has been elusive. These findings, which are statistically and economically significant, indicate that US companies face notable costs from sanctions against internationally active firms.

Discursive contestations of algorithms: a case study of recommendation platforms in China

This paper seeks to add to a growing body of literature on critical algorithm studies by exploring how the discursivity interacts with the materiality of algorithms and shapes algorithmic outputs. It takes ByteDance, a Chinese technology company specialized in running algorithm-driven content platforms, as a case to probe the discursive contestations of algorithms and argues that algorithms are inscribed with pre-existing values and norms. However, different parties, users, and regulators interpret algorithms differently, which, in turn, reshapes their outcomes. What is particularly interesting in the case of ByteDance is that, while previous studies have examined how algorithms automate connections for sociality, culture, and reality, this paper further extends the argument that algorithms are also effective in (re)producing ideology that has accommodated the algorithmic logic and the platformization of content production. This study is also “a discourse about discourses” (Foucault, The order of things: An archaeology of the human sciences. Random House, 1973, p. 205) and aims to contribute to our understanding of algorithms and their power.

The Digital Silk Road and the evolving role of Chinese technology companies

Concerns about China’s ambitions to return to the global centre stage as a great power have recently begun to focus on the Digital Silk Road (DSR), an umbrella term for various activities – commercial and diplomatic – of interest to the Chinese government in the cyber realm. Part of (or a spin-off from) the 2013 Belt and Road Initiative, by 2020 the DSR had become a focal point of China’s foreign policy. But the DSR remains ill-defined and poorly understood. At the heart of such concerns is not that Chinese technology companies are becoming globally competitive, but rather that Beijing could use them to ‘rewire’ the global digital architecture, from physical cables to code. Dominance by Chinese technology could shift global norms from a free cyber commons to competing systems of cyber sovereignty or cyber freedom. This Adelphi book brings together eight experts to examine the development of the DSR; explore its impact on economics, security and governance in recipient countries; and assess its broader impact on patterns of economic and technological dependence, on the emerging rules and norms of tech globalisation, and on global geopolitics and great-power relations. Beijing has grasped the opportunity to leverage the entrepreneurial strengths of its private tech sector to gain prominence in the world’s digital ecosystem. But the more interventionist Beijing becomes, the more Chinese firms will be seen as instruments of the state, and the greater the pushback against Chinese technology and the DSR may be. To achieve great-power status and global centrality, Beijing might ultimately need to change tack. How it innovates in further rolling out Chinese tech across the world, and what the DSR will then look like, will have far-reaching impacts on global economics, politics and security.

The Digital Silk Road and China’s grand strategic ambition

Concerns about China’s ambitions to return to the global centre stage as a great power have recently begun to focus on the Digital Silk Road (DSR), an umbrella term for various activities – commercial and diplomatic – of interest to the Chinese government in the cyber realm. Part of (or a spin-off from) the 2013 Belt and Road Initiative, by 2020 the DSR had become a focal point of China’s foreign policy. But the DSR remains ill-defined and poorly understood. At the heart of such concerns is not that Chinese technology companies are becoming globally competitive, but rather that Beijing could use them to ‘rewire’ the global digital architecture, from physical cables to code. Dominance by Chinese technology could shift global norms from a free cyber commons to competing systems of cyber sovereignty or cyber freedom. This Adelphi book brings together eight experts to examine the development of the DSR; explore its impact on economics, security and governance in recipient countries; and assess its broader impact on patterns of economic and technological dependence, on the emerging rules and norms of tech globalisation, and on global geopolitics and great-power relations. Beijing has grasped the opportunity to leverage the entrepreneurial strengths of its private tech sector to gain prominence in the world’s digital ecosystem. But the more interventionist Beijing becomes, the more Chinese firms will be seen as instruments of the state, and the greater the pushback against Chinese technology and the DSR may be. To achieve great-power status and global centrality, Beijing might ultimately need to change tack. How it innovates in further rolling out Chinese tech across the world, and what the DSR will then look like, will have far-reaching impacts on global economics, politics and security.

Introduction

Concerns about China’s ambitions to return to the global centre stage as a great power have recently begun to focus on the Digital Silk Road (DSR), an umbrella term for various activities – commercial and diplomatic – of interest to the Chinese government in the cyber realm. Part of (or a spin-off from) the 2013 Belt and Road Initiative, by 2020 the DSR had become a focal point of China’s foreign policy. But the DSR remains ill-defined and poorly understood. At the heart of such concerns is not that Chinese technology companies are becoming globally competitive, but rather that Beijing could use them to ‘rewire’ the global digital architecture, from physical cables to code. Dominance by Chinese technology could shift global norms from a free cyber commons to competing systems of cyber sovereignty or cyber freedom. This Adelphi book brings together eight experts to examine the development of the DSR; explore its impact on economics, security and governance in recipient countries; and assess its broader impact on patterns of economic and technological dependence, on the emerging rules and norms of tech globalisation, and on global geopolitics and great-power relations. Beijing has grasped the opportunity to leverage the entrepreneurial strengths of its private tech sector to gain prominence in the world’s digital ecosystem. But the more interventionist Beijing becomes, the more Chinese firms will be seen as instruments of the state, and the greater the pushback against Chinese technology and the DSR may be. To achieve great-power status and global centrality, Beijing might ultimately need to change tack. How it innovates in further rolling out Chinese tech across the world, and what the DSR will then look like, will have far-reaching impacts on global economics, politics and security.

Locating the Digital Silk Road in the Belt and Road Initiative

Concerns about China’s ambitions to return to the global centre stage as a great power have recently begun to focus on the Digital Silk Road (DSR), an umbrella term for various activities – commercial and diplomatic – of interest to the Chinese government in the cyber realm. Part of (or a spin-off from) the 2013 Belt and Road Initiative, by 2020 the DSR had become a focal point of China’s foreign policy. But the DSR remains ill-defined and poorly understood. At the heart of such concerns is not that Chinese technology companies are becoming globally competitive, but rather that Beijing could use them to ‘rewire’ the global digital architecture, from physical cables to code. Dominance by Chinese technology could shift global norms from a free cyber commons to competing systems of cyber sovereignty or cyber freedom. This Adelphi book brings together eight experts to examine the development of the DSR; explore its impact on economics, security and governance in recipient countries; and assess its broader impact on patterns of economic and technological dependence, on the emerging rules and norms of tech globalisation, and on global geopolitics and great-power relations. Beijing has grasped the opportunity to leverage the entrepreneurial strengths of its private tech sector to gain prominence in the world’s digital ecosystem. But the more interventionist Beijing becomes, the more Chinese firms will be seen as instruments of the state, and the greater the pushback against Chinese technology and the DSR may be. To achieve great-power status and global centrality, Beijing might ultimately need to change tack. How it innovates in further rolling out Chinese tech across the world, and what the DSR will then look like, will have far-reaching impacts on global economics, politics and security.

Conclusion

Concerns about China’s ambitions to return to the global centre stage as a great power have recently begun to focus on the Digital Silk Road (DSR), an umbrella term for various activities – commercial and diplomatic – of interest to the Chinese government in the cyber realm. Part of (or a spin-off from) the 2013 Belt and Road Initiative, by 2020 the DSR had become a focal point of China’s foreign policy. But the DSR remains ill-defined and poorly understood. At the heart of such concerns is not that Chinese technology companies are becoming globally competitive, but rather that Beijing could use them to ‘rewire’ the global digital architecture, from physical cables to code. Dominance by Chinese technology could shift global norms from a free cyber commons to competing systems of cyber sovereignty or cyber freedom. This Adelphi book brings together eight experts to examine the development of the DSR; explore its impact on economics, security and governance in recipient countries; and assess its broader impact on patterns of economic and technological dependence, on the emerging rules and norms of tech globalisation, and on global geopolitics and great-power relations. Beijing has grasped the opportunity to leverage the entrepreneurial strengths of its private tech sector to gain prominence in the world’s digital ecosystem. But the more interventionist Beijing becomes, the more Chinese firms will be seen as instruments of the state, and the greater the pushback against Chinese technology and the DSR may be. To achieve great-power status and global centrality, Beijing might ultimately need to change tack. How it innovates in further rolling out Chinese tech across the world, and what the DSR will then look like, will have far-reaching impacts on global economics, politics and security.