Research In Chinese Context Research Articles

The impact of corporate environmental responsibility strategy on brand sustainability

PurposeThough enormous research studies were conducted on corporate environmental responsibility (CER), few of them could empirically justify how CER helps to improve firm’s competitive advantage and firms are still hesitant to incorporate CER with their business strategy at present. The purpose of this paper is to theoretically and empirically explore how the CER strategy could help the firm to gain competitive advantage in Chinese context, particularly in terms of achieving brand sustainability (BS).Design/methodology/approachIn this study, 310 listed companies in China were chosen as research sample. First, the CER strategies were classified into developing eco-friendly products, adopting EMAS or other eco-management, enhancing the impact of CER through value chain and charitable CER. Second, BS is constructed as two dimensions, i.e. resource-acquisition and consumer impact. Accordingly, this paper analyzed the relationship between CER and BS with regression model analysis, taking account of several moderating and control variables.FindingsThe results indicate that CER strategies have positive effect on BS. Among all CER strategies, developing eco-friendly products and charitable CER undertakings are the most effective ones to promote BS performance. Also, the paper found that the length of time in adopting CER strategy moderates the effect of CER on BS. The empirical evidence proves that CER strategies could enhance the brand value in terms of BS and help the company to gain competitive advantage.Research limitations/implicationsFirst, most of our samples are of the state-owned enterprises, so our assumption might not be applicable to other types of business. Second, corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication is an important factor in the relation between CSR and corporate performance, but it is not taken into account in this study. Third, the difference in industries and ownership in this research is out of concern.Practical implicationsAs this paper has provided empirical evidence to reveal the effectiveness of different CER strategies, firms in China could be more motivated to undertake CER not only for the sake of environment but also for their brand value and competitive advantage. More importantly, this paper could be a valuable reference for the firms in China to choose suitable and effective CER strategies, as proved in this study, to gain competitive advantage in the market.Originality/valueAt first, while public environmental awareness has improved gradually, we introduce the BS concept to explain how the CER strategies affect CCA. This approach gives us another perspective to highlight the relationship between these two constructs. Second, we conducted our research from practical perspective to explore how to apply the CER undertakings as the company’s strategy. Third, we conducted our empirical research in Chinese context, which will enrich the theoretical CER and CSR literature.

A Review of the Relationship between TMT Shared Cognition and Strategic Decision Making

As the main strategic decision makers, the top management team plays an important role in the development of the enterprise. High echelon theory provides a theoretical basis for the research of top management team. The original idea of the top management team is cognitive orientation, but the previous researches focus on the demographic characteristics and Heterogeneity of individual team members, ignore the social characteristics of the top management team as a team. At the same time, the results are unstable and contradictory. Furthermore, the cognitive process of top management team has always been a difficult problem in the academic circles, but has not found an effective way. Based on the upper echelons theory and shared mental model, this paper analyses systematically and summarizes the relevant research literatures, and reviews the domestic research literatures about the influence mechanism of TMT on strategic decision making, then proposes the suggestions that develop the Chinese context research and related western theories. In conclusion, the research results have great value to promote domestic scholars getting involved in this frontier research field, then keep up with the pace of international related theories development.

Job satisfaction and employee’s unionization decision: The mediating effect of perceived union instrumentality

Purpose: Given the current lack of literature in the background of China labor force, this study aims to investigate the relationships among job satisfaction, perceived union instrumentality, and unionization from a reference-frame-based perspective and explore the referred relationships in the context of Chinese labor market. Design/methodology/approach: The study introduces perceived union instrumentality as a mediator to the relationship between job satisfaction and unionization. The applicability of western theories was tested in the Chinese context by a questionnaire survey on 390 employees who were working in private sectors of Jiangsu Province in China. Four hypothesis were proposed and tested by data analysis to verify the model. Findings and Originality/value: The study found that most aspects of job satisfaction were negatively correlated with unionization and perceived union instrumentality, while perceived union instrumentality had a positive relationship with unionization. Perceived union instrumentality was also found to have a mediating effect on the relationship between job satisfaction and unionization. Originality/value: The paper adapted and tested a number of western industrial relation theories in the backdrop of China, contributing to the gap in Chinese-context research by examining the relationships between job satisfaction, unionization and union instrumentality of Chinese employees. It pays a regular contribution to labor union studies both inside and outside China.

Occupational Information Network: Framework、Features and Applications

Traditional job analysis methods have relatively obvious disadvantages like inadaptation to environmental change and cost inefficiency.The development of Occupational Information Network(O*NET) is deemed to solve these aforementioned problems.The key framework of O*NET,known as content model,incorporates the work and worker information together.The main features of O*NET contain unit reduction,cost effectiveness and timeliness,hierarchically nested model,cross-occupation descriptors.The paper argues that O*NET plays an important role in individual development and organizational management.Recent research progress on O*NET is summarized in two fields:job analysis and occupational classification.Future research in Chinese context is suggested to explore further in different areas.

A Pilot Study on the Structure of Organizational Cultural Identification: Empirical Research in Chinese Context

The primary purpose of this research is to explore the structure of organizational cultural identification. Qualitative and quantitative methods were used to build and validate the factors framework of cultural identification in organizations. Through exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, the four dimensions structure of organizational cultural identification was confirmed, and the Organizational Cultural Identification Scale (OCIS) was constructed.