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Advancing Indigenous Management Theory: Executive Rationale as an Institutional Logic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 July 2015

Gordon Redding  and
Michael A. Witt
Gordon Redding
Affiliation:
INSEAD, Singapore
Michael A. Witt
Affiliation:
INSEAD, Singapore
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Abstract

With this perspective paper, we seek to help open up an additional and, we believe, especially promising avenue for indigenous management research. We explore the potential for progress through the investigation of executive rationale, an institutional logic guiding managerial action and enabling strategies, structures, and formal integration mechanisms. Drawing on interviews with an elite group of executives including some of the world's most powerful managers, we illustrate variance in executive rationale across five major economies – Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, and the United States – and suggest that action and structures in these economies are broadly aligned with the respective expressions of executive rationale. We consequently hold that indigenous management research may benefit from a focus on executive rationale in particular, and we propose a concrete research agenda.

Keywords

Chinaindigenous management theoryinstitutional logicnational business systemsrationale
Type
Articles
Information
Management and Organization Review , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , June 2015 , pp. 179 - 203
Copyright
Copyright © The International Association for Chinese Management Research 2015 

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