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This paper explores the contextual factors involved in the development and application of paradigmatic theories in general, and the application and development of Agency Theory in the Chinese context in particular.

Referring to four templates for the design of conceptual papers as outlined by Jaakkola (2020), i.e. theory synthesis, theory adaptation, typology and model – we adopt an approach combining theory/literature synthesis and model establishment. Based on a thorough analysis and discussion of the literature on the topics of “context effect “, “interface between theory and context”, “special characteristics of Chinese context” and “invalid application of Agency Theory in a Chinese context”, we use Agency Theory as the lens to discuss the importance of context in applying and developing paradigmatic theory specifically. We start from the contextualization of Agency Theory and then explore approaches to theorizing the Chinese context by developing a conflict coefficient model.

First, the application validity of paradigmatic theories is not sustainable; contextual factors are critical in applying and developing not only propositional but also paradigmatic theories, such as Agency Theory. Second, the Chinese context requires special attention when applying paradigmatic theories originating from Western countries. Third, the traditional application logic of Agency Theory is invalid in the Chinese context due to the coexistence of principal-agent conflicts (PAC) and principal–principal conflicts (PPC), and changeable dominance status of two conflicts according to the contexts. Based on these observations, a model of contextualization theory of PAC and PPC (i.e. conflict coefficient model) is developed from a dynamic perspective, which connects the separated situation states and allows the identification and measurement of the relative severity of the two types of agency conflicts.

Practitioners can also use this model to identify and measure the relative strength of the two conflicts and determine the direction of control and improvement. Moreover, analysis of Chinese context and agency problems of Chinese firms also has great practical significance considering the increased importance of the Chinese market and the increasingly important role played by Chinese firms in the international economy in general, and in specific host countries in particular.

First, in general, this study expands Whetten's (2009) study of the interface between theory and context. It specifically discusses approaches to considering contextual factors in the development and application of the relatively overlooked paradigmatic theories, using traditional and widely used Agency Theory as a lens. Our study suggests that typical Agency Theory, developed based on Western-centric assumptions, does not completely hold in the context of Chinese business practices because of different cultural, legal and governance realities. Second, it improves and extends the application of Agency Theory by proposing the new perspective that PAC and PPC coexist in specific contexts and positing that the relative severity of two types of agency conflicts depends on the context variables. Third, it puts forward a conflict coefficient model offering a more comprehensive, intuitive and quantifiable method for comparing the extent of the two conflicts in different scenarios, providing a reference for empirical studies of corporate governance.

This paper aims to emphasize the importance of Chinese institutional contexts beyond “culture” by analyzing a few non-cultural institution-dependent contexts in Chinese HRM research, using an institutional theory perspective.

The authors review existing Chinese indigenous management research from an institutional theoretical perspective and provide a critique of the research from that perspective.

Chinese contexts are more than Confucianism. Focusing on this aspect of culture without integrating other institutional contexts, while informative, is unlikely to identify and explain the uniqueness of Chinese individual and organizational behaviors. Informed by institutional theory, the authors examine how institutional language context influences Chinese institutional behavior. The authors also argue that the guanxi phenomenon is more strongly dependent on institutional forces than on culture in the recent Chinese history. Incorporating these “non-cultural” institutional contexts in research enables us to describe the “what” and explore the “why” and “how” in theory development, rather than placing value judgments on the institutional arrangements.

While societal culture provides an important institutional context, China’s broad culture is not unique among countries with similar Confucian traditions. Chinese management scholars are encouraged to be mindful of pervasive institutional contexts in exploring and theorizing local organizational phenomena. Research without considering non-cultural institutional contexts may prevent a finer-grained understanding of Chinese organizational phenomena for developing Chinese management theory, and it is unlikely to identify the uniqueness of Chinese organizational phenomena among countries influenced by similar Confucian cultural traditions.

Built on previous literature, this paper is among the first to specify and examine explicitly non-Confucian Chinese institutional contexts as a basis for the exploration of Chinese organizational phenomena.

The aim of this research is to explore the behavioral model of Chinese organizational leaders acquiring resources for the development of their organizations under the influence of hierarchically oriented social governance.

The paper compares the differences between Western and Chinese contexts and conducts a grounded multi-case study to explore leadership behavioral model in the Chinese context.

First, the Chinese social governance structure is hierarchically oriented, whereas the Western social governance structure is market oriented. Second, this unique inconformity found in the Chinese organizational leaders as contorted leadership, which refers to the inconsistency between leaders’ cognition and their behavior when acquiring resources for the development of their organizations, is defined. Third, the conflict between leaders’ cognition and behaviors is caused by the social governance mechanism within which leaders are embedded.

The authors have just made a first step to understand contorted leadership in the Chinese context, further researches should pay more attention to exploring the origins, functions and impacts of leaders’ contorted behaviors.

First, leadership is linked with social governance by emphasizing on the core role of social governance in allocating the resources which organizational leaders scramble for. Second, a new kind of leadership –contorted leadership – in the Chinese context that emphasizes on the contradiction between leaders’ cognition and behavior, which deepens the understanding of leadership contextualization, is identified.

As the global presence of Chinese firms grows, increasing numbers of Chinese managers are working abroad as expatriates. However, little attention has been paid to such Chinese expatriate managers and their leadership challenges in an inter-cultural context, especially across a large cultural distance. To fill the gap in the literature concerning the leadership challenges for expatriate managers in an inter-cultural context, the purpose of this paper is to elucidate the leadership styles of Chinese expatriate managers from the perspectives of three traditional Chinese philosophies (i.e. Confucianism, Taoism, and Legalism) in the inter-cultural context of the Netherlands.

The data for this qualitative study were collected via semi-structured, open-ended, narrative interviews with 30 Chinese expatriate managers in the Netherlands.

The results clearly show that the leadership style of Chinese expatriate managers is deeply rooted in the three traditional Chinese philosophies of Confucianism, Taoism, and Legalism, even in an inter-cultural context. Specifically, the study reveals two salient aspects of how Chinese expatriate managers frame and interact with a foreign cultural context from the perspectives of traditional Chinese philosophies. First, the Chinese expatriate managers reported an initial cultural shock related to frictions between the foreign cultural context and Confucianism or Taoism, but less so in the case of Legalism. Second, the Chinese expatriate managers also reported that their interactions with the Dutch culture are best described as a balance between partial conflict and partial complementarity (thus, a duality). In this sense, the leadership style of Chinese expatriate managers is influenced jointly by the three traditional Chinese philosophies and certain elements of the foreign cultural context. This is consistent with the Chinese perspective of yin-yang balancing.

This study is among the first to offer a more nuanced and highly contextualized understanding of leadership in the unique case of expatriate managers from an emerging market (e.g. China) in an advanced economy (e.g. the Netherlands). The authors call for more research to apply the unique perspective of yin-yang balancing in an inter-cultural context. The authors posit that this approach represents the most salient implication of this study. For practical implications, the authors argue that expatriate leaders should carefully manage the interplay between their deep-rooted home-country philosophies and their salient host-country culture. Reflecting on traditional philosophies in another culture can facilitate inter-cultural leadership training for Chinese expatriates.

This paper aims to explore and compare academics’ experiences of managing work-life balance (WLB) in the British and Chinese contexts. The authors have three specific purposes. Firstly, to investigate whether there are marked gender differences in either context, given female and male academics’ work is considered fully comparable. Secondly, to examine contextual factors contributing to gender differences that influence and shape decisions in WLB and career paths. Thirdly, to explore the gendered consequences and implications.

A cross-national and multilevel analytical approach to WLB was chosen to unpick and explore gender land contextual differences and their influence on individual academics’ coping strategies. To reflect the exploratory nature of uncovering individual experience and perceptions, the authors used in-depth, semi-structured interviews. In total, 37 academics participated in the study, comprised of 18 participants from 6 universities in the UK and 19 participants from 6 universities in China.

This study reveals gendered differences in both the British and Chinese contexts in three main aspects, namely, sourcing support; managing emotions; and making choices, but more distinct differences in the latter context. Most significantly, it highlights that individual academics’ capacity in cultivating and using coping strategies was shaped simultaneously by multi-layered factors at the country level, the HE institutional level and the individual academics’ level.

Very few cross-cultural WLB studies explore gender differences. This cross-national comparative study is of particular value in making the “invisible visible” in terms of the gendered nature of choices and decisions within the context of WLB. The study has significant implications for female academics exercising individual scope in carving out a career, and for academic managers and institutions, in terms of support, structure and policy.

Talent management (TM) is underdeveloped and TM recognition is unclear in the context of Chinese private‐owned enterprises (POEs). As talent definition is the basis of TM practices, the purpose of this paper is to explore talent definition and TM recognition in the context of Chinese real estate POEs, in order to explore how Chinese cultural context and POEs' characteristics influence talent definition and TM recognition.

In total, 27 semi‐structured interviews were conducted in three case study companies.

Based on qualitative analysis, the paper finds talent definition is influenced by the important Chinese cultural factor “guanxi” and is quite different from existing Western TM literature. TM recognition is also influenced by the Chinese POEs' operation characteristics.

The paper finds a new talent definition criterion, “guanxi”, and identifies TM recognition in the context of Chinese POEs. The paper thus contributes to TM literature in China.

This paper aims to analyze the adjustment experience of Chinese expatriate managers in Portugal.

This exploratory study is based on the qualitative analysis of 12 semi-structured, open-ended interviews to Chinese expatriate managers in Portugal. Expatriates varied in terms of international experience, stage of career and industry. All expatriates had at least one-year working experience in Portugal. The coding process followed a reflexive approach between data and existing theory.

The process of adjustment of Chinese expatriate managers to the Portuguese context is arranged in five dimensions: perception: expatriates tend to perceive the differences between China and Portugal as not significant; guanxi replication: similarities between the two countries raised the question of whether the guanxi model could be replicated; resistance: although the two countries are perceived as close, there are significant differences, namely, in terms of some cultural aspects, the legal framework and the level of acceptance of the guanxi; adaptation: given these resistances, it is necessary for expatriates to change some practices that are commonly used in the Chinese context; and identity construction: Chinese expatriates are particularly concerned by their identity as foreigners and of the corresponding need to adjust.

This exploratory study revealed that guanxi should not be seen as a purely cultural product grounded in the Confucian tradition but instead should be taken as a business strategy that depends on the existence of specific factors, such as the relevance and quality of interpersonal relationships in a business context.

The purpose of this study is to offer a better understanding of contemporary consumer behaviour. This study relates to the complex and value-laden phenomenon of “gift-giving” from the perspective of bicultural consumers. The focus was on the gift-giving practices of Chinese immigrants in Canada within both their current and their past residencies (Canada and China, respectively).

Conceptual guidelines for this study embodied the gift-giving conceptual framework of Sherry (1983) and Chinese cultural values on gift giving (Yau et al., 1999). A qualitative research study was implemented. Specifically, in-depth interviews with Chinese immigrant women mainly from the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) in Ontario, Canada, offered empirical evidence relating to the gestation stage of gift giving.

The findings indicate the complexity of acculturation in gift-giving practices. In terms of gift-giving occasions, Chinese immigrants in Canada, for the most part, adopted the Canadian gift-giving occasions. However, the important role of ethnicity in decision-making is found through their strong sense of differentiation between Chinese and Canadian gift receivers. The results also indicate some Chinese cultural values such as relationship, reciprocity and group orientation as being still important in shaping gift-giving practices, even after immigration to a new country quite distant from the homeland. One cautionary note is that some cultural values such as relationship can be common to both Chinese and Canadian cultural groups.

This research was conducted mainly in the GTA in Ontario, Canada. Future studies could address other large Canadian cities with significant bicultural Chinese populations such as Vancouver in British Columbia and Motreal in Quebec.

This research extends the knowledge of bicultural consumers by examining the evolving gift-giving practices of Chinese immigrants living in Canada. A good understanding of the cultural values important to bicultural consumers will help marketers to efficiently and effectively allocate their marketing resources in attracting these niche consumers.

This study has contributed to the broader field of marketing research. Specifically, the current study offers the importance of understanding values transference of bicultural consumers and their behaviours in integrating into the mainstream gift-giving cultural context.

This study has contributed by offering evidence of how a minority consumer group formed complex acculturation realities within a gift-giving consumption context. This contribution can be counted as a step towards theoretical advancement in the field of acculturation and of understanding bicultural consumers.

The purpose of this study is to promote Chinese indigenous research by examining a case in which adopting social capital (SC) scales developed in the Western context for Chinese samples can decontextualize inter-firm guanxi management in the Chinese context.

Adopting the existing Western scales to measure SC, we collected data from Chinese executives participating in executive master of business administration programs on buyer–supplier relationship. Using the same items and data source, we identified post hoc factors representing guanxi dimensions. Ordinary least squared regressions were used for both guanxi and SC dimensions to test the hypotheses.

Our analysis showed that Chinese natives responded to the Western SC items according to their understanding and mindsets rooted in guanxi. This was evidenced by the results from the post hoc-derived guanxi dimensions with the same data, which show better regression results for the hypotheses tested, although the construct validity was comparable. Adopting Western SC measurement scales deconceptualized the intricate Chinese context and inter-firm interactions.

It is inappropriate to borrow Western-developed scales for Chinese HRM research due to intricate differences in contexts. Doing so may run the risk of ignoring the Chinese context regarding the mechanisms and processes of complex human interactions, although it may produce superficial results consistent with the Western literature. Developing indigenous measurement scales should be considered not only as a preference but also as a requirement for Chinese management research.

We empirically compared the difference between Western-developed measurement scales and a Chinese indigenous construct, as well as their impact on relationship management in relation to indigenous Chinese management research.

The purpose of this paper is to examine a Chinese indigenous concept of organizational ownership behavior (OOB) as an aspect of employee suzhi in relation to organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) in the Western context.

A content analysis based on a review of related research in Western mainstream and Chinese domestic literature is conducted.

Suzhi at the organizational level can be linked to the construct of OCB. In Chinese organizations, a relevant concept to OCB can be better understood as OOB to capture the sociopolitical and cultural context unique to Chinese organizations. The dimensional structure of OOB is presented to differentiate it from OCB which is popular in the Western context.

The identified construct of OOB offers important implications for indigenous Chinese management research and human resources management (HRM) practice. OOB, based on Chinese management practice, can better conform to China’s unique historical and cultural context and management practices. This concept varies distinctively from Western OCB in terms of its connotation and dimensions.

The concept of OOB as an indigenous employee organizational behavior in the Chinese context is conceptualized. The paper differentiates the OOB construct from OCB and presents an initial set of six dimensions of OOB for future research.