In this article we seek to explore the contextual antecedents of organizational trust. In light of the complex links between organizational contexts and organizational behaviours, we focus on the effects of the three most critical contextual antecedents, i.e., leadership role, structural rule, and cultural norm at the organizational level, on organizational trust direcdy, and their behavioural outcomes at the individual level indirectly, using organizational trust as a cross-level mediator. The empirical results, based on a hierarchical linear model with a sample of 444 employees from 82 firms in China, lent support for our multidimensional cross-level model of context–trust–behaviour link. We extend the research on organizational trust by treating it as a cross-level phenomenon and by specifying its core contextual antecedents and behavioural consequences.

Previous studies have found no relationship between scholar participation and public project performance. Building on the work of Lindblom (1977; 1990), I propose a model depicting scholars' roles in social organizations and governance. A study of thirty-two cases of large public works projects in China and seventeen projects in thirteen other countries shows a moderately positive relationship. The study further shows the greatest influence on project success occurs when participating scholars serve as information brokers and entrepreneurial activity organizers. Successful scholar participation occurred through five working principles: (1) there is dispersed and specialized knowledge production; (2) there is dispersed and asymmetric knowledge possession; (3) knowledge-driven volitions and consensus are criteria for knowledge; (4) the satisfaction of diverse and heterogeneous individual needs is realized through knowledge-driven institutional arrangements; and (5) there are multiple methods of knowledge application. In general, scholar participation seems to be more effective in projects in which there is low political intervention, and in village and county projects. The results of the study provide a theoretical and empirical foundation for further research on scholar participation in social organizations.

This study identifies the influencing processes that underlie the effect of the three paternalistic leadership dimensions on subordinates' work performance/ organizational citizenship behaviours. The results, based on data collected from private firms in China, showed that perceived interactional justice mediated the effects of moral leadership and benevolent leadership on trust-in-supervisor. However, perceived interactional justice did not mediate the relationship between authoritarian leadership and trust-in-supervisor. In addition, trust-in-supervisor was found to be positively associated with work performance and organizational citizenship behaviours. Cultural and practical implications and future research directions are also discussed.

We examine the influence of social distance on levels of trust and reciprocity in China. Social distance, reflected in the indigenous concept of guanxi, is of central importance to Chinese culture. In Study 1, some participants participated in two financially salient trust games to measure behaviour, one with an anonymous classmate and the other with an anonymous, demographically identical non-classmate. Other participants, drawn from the same population, completed hypothetical surveys to gauge both hypothetical behaviour and expectations of others. Social distance effects on actual and hypothetical behaviour were statistically consistent. The results together corroborated the hypothesized negative relationship between trust and social distance. However, reciprocity was not responsive to social distance. Study 2 found that affect-based trust, but not cognition-based trust, played a mediating role in the relationship between social distance and interpersonal trust in a hypothetical scenario. We conclude that close guanxi ties in China engender affect-based trust, which is extended to shouren classmates. This is true despite the fact that no more cognition-based trust is placed nor reciprocity received or expected from classmates compared to demographically identical shengren non-classmates.

This article considers whether social organizations (SOs) in China have acquired more autonomy over time under the socialist market economy. To discern whether SOs are changing under the corporatist system, we use quantitative data analyses of a 2001 to 2004 survey of SOs in China. We find that the later the SOs were founded, the more autonomy they have and die more oriented they are to representing their constituents' interests. The data also verify that the later SOs were formed, the greater their desire for freedom from the party-state. Furthermore, SOs that are more autonomous tend to be more critical of the SO management system, but this holds only for SOs founded before 2000. After 2001, no correlation occurs between autonomy and the expressed desire for more freedom.

This commentary discusses the four articles in this special MOR issue on indigenous management research in China. It begins by recognizing the importance of indigenous research not only for understanding the specific knowledge of local phenomena, but also for advancing general theoretical knowledge across cultural boundaries. Challenging to undertake, we propose a method of engaged scholarship for conducting indigenous research. The four articles in this special issue provide good examples of applying principles of engaged scholarship in their indigenous Chinese management studies.

The expansive research on innovation in organizations has primarily followed a technological imperative, postulating that organizations organize their innovation efforts through research and development (R&D) activities. Theories of innovation are thus shaped mosdy from the studies of technology-based innovations in the manufacturing sector, yet are applied in all contexts. This article advocates research on managerial innovations - new approaches to devise strategy and structure of tasks and units, modify the organization's management processes and administrative systems, motivate and reward organizational members, and enable organizational adaptation and change. We examine the conceptual development, generation and adoption processes, antecedents, and influences of managerial innovation on organizational conduct. By increasing an understanding of managerial innovation, this article aims to complement existing theories of innovation derived from the studies of technological innovations and thus help extend and advance theory and research on innovation process and outcome in organizations.

In this article, we describe the development of cross-cultural research in organizational behaviour over the last few decades. Distinguishing four epochs of cross-cultural research, i.e., the Aristotelian, Linnean, Newtonian, and Einsteinian, we explain research questions, empirical approaches, and research designs that have guided contributions to each epoch. Based on this description, we outline a route for future research that takes Chinese indigenous constructs as points of departure to describe how individual outcomes of interest are embedded in their cultural environment. Finally, we provide concrete implications for future research in this area.

Guanxi, a social network tie drawing on connections in business relations, has been identified as a powerful strategic tool helping organizations maintain competitive advantages and achieve superior performance. However, prior empirical studies on die gM/m-performance link provide indefinite conclusions. The purpose of this study is to systematically review and quandfy the guanxi-performance link in a meta-analytic framework by decomposing guanxi into business ties (i.e., guanxi with business partners) and government ties (i.e., guanxi with government authorities) and organizational performance into economic performance and operational performance. Based on effect sizes from fifty-three studies encompassing 20,212 organizations, we estimate that the overall effect size of the guanxi-pertormance relationship is positive and significant, thus endorsing the argument that guanxi does enhance organizational performance. Specifically, our meta-analysis results demonstrate that both business and government ties lead to both economic and operational performance. However, business ties have a bigger impact on operational performance, whereas government ties exert larger effects on economic performance. Further meta-analytic regression results suggest that ownership (state-owned vs. non-state-owned) and location (Mainland vs. overseas China) explain some of the variations of the guanxi-performance link. Both business and government ties are more important to organizations in Mainland China than to those in overseas China. Government ties are more important to state-owned than to non-state-owned organizations. Lasdy, while business ties remain a valuable strategic tool in China, the importance of government ties is time-variant and has been declining with the development of the institutional environment in China.

In this study, we develop a context-emic model to evaluate articles which use the Chinese context for their theoretical contributions to management and organization research. We apply the model to 259 articles published in six leading general management and organization journals between 1981 and 2010 and 43 articles from Management and Organization Review (MOR) from its launch in 2005 to 2010. We found ten articles in the six leading journals and four articles in MOR to have some degree of Chinese contextualization in their concepts or constructs (what), their relationships (how), and tlie logics underlying the relationships (why). In particular, we discovered only three new concepts (market transition, network capitalism, and guanxi), and some reference to Confucianism and its related concepts. As expected, MOR articles have a higher level of Chinese contextualization than articles in the top six journals. Using the Colquitt and Zapata-Phelan theory-building-testing taxonomy, we found Chinese-context research to have contributed to both theory-building and theory-testing over time. We also found that empirical articles with a higher level of Chinese contextualization garner more citations. Finally, we discuss the implications of the study's results for future contextualization research related to China.

This article reflects upon the evolution of Brazilian management studies in light of the debate provoked by Management and Organization Review, 5(1), in a special edition on ‘The Future of Chinese Management Research’. Despite an impressive growth in publications, Brazilian management and organization studies have had litde conversation with mainstream international scholarship. The article offers some explanations as to why this might be so and suggests some alternatives for enhancing the international impact of Brazilian studies and advancing the country's reputation in the field. We suggest two routes through which Brazilian management studies could enhance international legitimacy: an outside-in approach, which draws upon established international contributions to theory to inform the investigation, but uses the Brazilian context to enlighten these same theories, and an inside-out approach that draws upon indigenous questions and research design to develop a theory relevant to the Brazilian context, which ultimately contributes to the enhancement of existing or to the creation of new theories. In addition, this article suggests that ambidextrous policies provide a better fit for research strategies intended to foster both approaches.