We classify survey scales or measures currently used in Chinese management research along two dimensions - the source of the scale and expectations about its cultural specificity. Based on these two dimensions, we differentiate four approaches to scale development: translation, adaptation, de-contextualization, and contextualization. We describe the key assumptions, strengths and limitations of each approach and their roles in Chinese management research. We illustrate the four approaches by commenting on the five articles in this special issue.

We introduce a new perspective on the conceptualization and measurement of ownership identities of China's listed companies. Previous work analyzing the strategy and performance implications of the ownership structure in Chinese firms has used the official categorization provided by state bodies in China. In this categorization, state shareholding, legal person shareholding and A-shares dominate. This official categorization, however, obscures the ultimate identity of a shareholder; this can confound conceptual and empirical work on die strategy and performance implications of ownership identity. We refine the existing classification by recategorizing shareholders into 16 types, which can then be regrouped into relevant categories of shareholders, such as government or private, to enable analysis of ownership identity and ownership concentration issues in China's listed companies. Our new classification can help provide consistency in the burgeoning research on the strategy and performance implications of the concentration and identity aspects of ownership structure in China's listed companies.

The economic and market reforms in China have given rise to firms with three distinct types of ownership: state-owned enterprises, private domestic enterprises, and foreign-invested firms. The three studies reported in this paper addressed the questions of whether organizational culture varies among firms with different ownership structures and whether it relates to firm performance or employee attitudes as it has been observed in US firms. The first study employed an inductive approach to identify culture dimensions and found five common dimensions across these different types of firms. In the second study, we derived an empirical taxonomy of four organizational culture types involving different configurations of the five organizational culture dimensions, and found a systematic relationship between these culture types and a measure of perceived firm performance. The third study confirmed the relationship between organizational culture types and middle manager attitudes. Suggestions are offered for future research building on the organizational culture dimensions and culture types introduced in these studies.

To add greater theoretical precision to a fundamental construct in social exchange theory - namely, Gouldner's ‘norm of reciprocity’, this study developed a measure of Sahlins' generalized, balanced, and negative reciprocity types and validated its psychometric quality in China. For a comprehensive construct validation of the new scale, we carried out three studies. After generating a pool of items, we used a panel of experts to classify items according to conceptual definitions of the three reciprocity types. Using factor analysis, the first study revealed a factor structure consistent with Sahlins' reciprocity typology. In the second study, confirmatory factor analysis replicated this factor structure as well as demonstrated that the reciprocity factors are distinct from each other and other social-exchange constructs. In line with extant theories, the third study corroborated a nomological network relating reciprocity types to external constructs. Given this broad array of evidence for its construct validity, future researchers can employ this validated scale to investigate various forms of social exchange in Chinese work settings.

The concept of a high commitment work system (HCWS) has mostly been used in the West to study the relationship between a firm's work systems and organizational performance. In this paper, we introduce a preliminary measure of HCWS in China based on the definition of Baron and Kreps (1999). In study 1, we tested the measure by surveying 442 employees in China's information technology (IT) industry. In study 2, we re-tested the same measure from the perspective of human resource (HR) executives in 126 foreign-invested companies. The analyses not only provided some evidence for the construct validity of this preliminary measure of a high commitment work system, but also produced some interesting results that can only be understood with regards to the history and institutional backgrounds of Chinese organizations.

Demonstrating the equivalence of constructs is a key requirement for cross-cultural empirical research. The major purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how to assess measurement and functional equivalence or invariance using the 9-item, 3-factor Love of Money Scale (LOMS, a second-order factor model) and the 4-item, 1-factor Pay Level Satisfaction Scale (PLSS, a first-order factor model) across 29 samples in six continents (N = 5973). In step 1, we tested the configural, metric and scalar invariance of the LOMS and 17 samples achieved measurement invariance. In step 2, we applied the same procedures to the PLSS and nine samples achieved measurement invariance. Five samples (Brazil, China, South Africa, Spain and the USA) passed the measurement invariance criteria for both measures. In step 3, we found that for these two measures, common method variance was non-significant. In step 4, we tested the functional equivalence between the Love of Money Scale and Pay Level Satisfaction Scale. We achieved functional equivalence for these two scales in all five samples. The results of this study suggest the critical importance of evaluating and establishing measurement equivalence in cross-cultural studies. Suggestions for remedying measurement non-equivalence are offered.