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The purpose of this paper is to present a conceptual framework of corporate political performance (CPP) in corporate political activity. In fact, CPP refers to political benefits obtained by firms when they formulate and implement political strategies to influence the public policy process though the investment of political resources. This paper focuses on answering what is perhaps the most fundamental question to strategy researchers: “How do firms engage in political strategies to improve their performance?”

In building a theoretical framework, this paper, first, provides a historical analysis of political efficiency and effectiveness. Then, this paper attempts to illustrate conceptually our understanding of political performance process by a generalized and contingent approach. Finally, this paper discusses the framework, its theoretical contribution and practical implications for Chinese management, and comments on limitations for future research.

The paper presents a conceptual CPP model that integrates political efficiency and effectiveness approach. In the conceptual framework, three phases of CPP include sources of political advantage, political competitive advantage and political performance outcome, and three dimensions are identified as political efficiency, effectiveness and adaptiveness. CPP approach is not a “generalized” nature of political performance measurement, as the difference among firms and industries in this area may be significant, which reflects the effect of context, reaction and outcome factors.

While it provides a strong theoretical foundation, this paper still has almost little empirical evidence concerning CPP process. However, how to measure CPP has increasingly begun to focus on an important research domain in corporate political strategy literature. This paper believes that this model has a need for future research to test its feasibility by using the measurement scales in Chinese context.

This paper is original in its attempt to measure CPP to help the business practice in corporate of political activity, and broaden corporate political strategy research in mainstream strategic management.

By reviewing the overall concept of corporate political strategy (CPS), the purpose of this paper is to display a contemporary summary of issues of the diverse global CPSs. This study additionally aims to provide relevant corporate political behavioral concepts that surround a firm’s political actions when entering specific politico-economic markets as well as future work recommendations. This paper further provides a contemporary bibliographic analysis on CPS.

Through a systematic ISI Web of Knowledge^TM All Databases literature review on “CPS,” the research was refined in relation to articles from “all year time-span,” “social science,” and “business economic” areas. After relevant papers were retrieved, sorted, and analyzed, a final bibliographic analysis on CPS was performed using HistCite reference graph maker.

Results of this research provide a table with a conceptual summary of different CPS types, approaches to political strategy, participation levels, assessment of the political environments, research implications, as well as other related CPS factors.

There is still a lack of empirical research on how specific firm CPSs can help overcome the effect of foreignness within different host countries. This study provides an overview and list of CPSs that companies use when entering a particular politico-economic context as well as inner CPS research streams.

This contemporary conceptual taxonomy on CPS provides researchers as well as practitioners with insights into the global CPS evolution, in addition to a current picture of CPS within different contexts.

International human resource management (IHRM) is becoming increasingly fundamental to organisational success, as globalisation forces demand organisations to design and implement a global strategy. One of the most critical choices faced by IHRM practitioners is whether and when an organisation should adapt its human resource policies and practices to the local context (localisation). A typology of International Human Resource Management Orientations (IHRMO) that clarifies what IHRMO’s are and what they entail is developed from a review of the literature on localisation and globalisation, convergence and divergence and Perlmutter’s management typology. Additionally, two theoretical models are developed that predict which IHRM orientation identified in the typology should be adopted. The article takes a step towards elucidating effective IHRM strategy and practice decision‐making by showing that culture and institutional pressures, amongst other tings, do make a difference.

The purpose of this paper is to present robust evidence about the effects of human resource management (HRM) systems on organizational productivity, by mixing both distal objective and proximal subjective measures, and by proposing an estimation method that employs hard HRM data.

The purpose of the study is achieved via a simultaneous equations system that has been estimated and simulated, based on an augmented Cobb-Douglas production function, which innovatively has been transformed from static to dynamic, using both economics-based literature and literature from the HRM discipline.

The study supports the view that HRM has a positive impact on productivity, through employee skills, attitudes, and behaviour. Additionally, the study finds that a 10 per cent increase in the extent of the systematic use of HR practices will lead to a 3.27 per cent increase in the total production, and that employee compensation and incentives play the most important role in improving production efficiency. Further, the study finds that for each additional year of systematic use of HR practices, total production will be increasing by 0.07 per cent per annum.

The findings of the study suggest practitioners that competitiveness (expressed by increased productivity) will be increased not by reducing costs, as a result of dismissing employees or decreasing wages, but instead by improving productivity as a result of increased compensation and incentives, and improved training and development.

The key output of the paper is the development of a sophisticated model that links an HRM system to a production system, through intermediate HRM outcomes, and the extension of the “generalised method of moments” as a systems estimation method that should be used for curing possible misspecification and common method bias problems in the HRM discipline.

The purpose of the paper is to present a discussion on the “soft and human” side of building environmentally sustainable organizations, a flourishing management subfield called “green human resource management” (GHRM), which concerns alignment of people and environmental management objectives of organizations.

The authors reviewed some of the most relevant research results in GHRM.

In this paper, the authors define GHRM, its workplace-based practices and some recent developments’ evidence on the positive impact of it on firms’ ecological objectives. The authors conclude by detailing a new research agenda in GHRM.

The authors conclude by detailing a new and contemporary research agenda in GHRM.

This article aims at reviewing existing theories relevant to human resource management (HRM) and providing theoretical contexts to explain the importance of managing people across borders for emerging Chinese multinational enterprises (MNEs).

Based on a literature review approach, the author examines the phenomenon of emerging Chinese MNEs from the lenses of three streams of theories: organisation‐based view; resource‐based view; and institution‐based view.

Existing theories offer sufficient insights to explore differences between emerging and established MNEs, particularly in strategic international HRM research. First, Chinese EMNEs were driven to internationalising by different motives, thus creating impact on the strategic choice and global HRM policy consideration. Second, Chinese EMNEs are operating under constantly changing institutional environments, both at home and in host countries. As a result, they are required to balance and rebalance the choices made in formulating and implementing IHRM strategies. Third, there will be different internationalisation outcomes pursued by Chinese EMNEs. Therefore, IHRM policies and practices are to achieve individual, organisational and societal well‐being.

The article has important implications for HRM theory and research. It may lead to developing relevant analytical frameworks for future research in Chinese human resource management. It is also beneficial to understand the formation and implementation of HRM policy and practices in EMNEs originated not only in China, but in other developing countries.

This article contributes to the international HRM literature in relation to Chinese emerging MNEs from a theoretical perspective. Synthesizing existing core theories with examples from Chinese MNEs, it proposes future research directions for analysing further development of such enterprises.

This paper aims to examine and test the moderating influence of the type of knowledge underlying work – known as the knowledge in practice (KIP) perspective – on the relationship between knowledge management (KM) activities and unit performance. KIP proposes that the knowledge underlying work varies according to two dimensions: tacitness and learnability. This theory proposes that aligning KM activities with tacitness and learnability results in increased performance. However, to the authors’ knowledge, there exists no direct empirical tests of these propositions outlined in KIP theory. This study examines the empirical support for the theoretical predictions outlined by KIP.

The study uses a multiple survey, multiple respondent survey design to measure KM activity sets, the tacitness and learnability involved in work contexts and unit performance. Regression analysis is used to test the hypotheses.

In line with previous research, the authors find support for a direct relationship between some KM activity sets and unit performance. Surprisingly, the authors did not find support for the predictions offered by KIP theory. Specifically, the degree of tacitness or learnability did not moderate the relationship between KM activity sets and unit performance.

The lack of findings to support the moderating effects of tacitness and learnability on the relationship between KM activity sets and unit performance challenges the adequacy of existing formulations of KIP theory. The authors discuss several important future research directions to examine this puzzling finding.

This paper reinforces the suggestion that managers at all levels of organizations should engage in KM activities to increase performance. These findings also suggest that considering the type of knowledge underlying a unit’s work should not be a consideration in implementing KM activities.

This is the first study to empirically test a KIP perspective. That is, how the type of knowledge involved in work moderates the relationships between KM activity sets and unit performance.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Term. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.

Although line managers have always been involved in managing human resources (HR), it is within human resource management (HRM) that their involvement has been placed centre‐stage as a core element of an HR approach. This article reports findings from 40 interviews with line managers on their experiences in handling HR work that has been devolved to them, from a study of three different UK work organisations. The study finds that significant organisational benefits and costs exist from involving the line in HR work. The article concludes that participation of both line and HR managers in HRM needs to be re‐assessed, as line involvement in HRM is a problematic initiative for organisations to adopt.