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This study aims to explore the policy‐making mechanism of the Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD) on innovation and the US practice in identifying policies on online copyright protection and innovation. The research findings provide valuable implications for emerging economies like China.

For data collection, this study adopted field observation of online interactions. Guided by the democratic paradigm of the civil society, state, and market and the theory of the government's roles as a broker, advocator, and facilitator, thematic analysis was applied to analyze the 150 purposively selected comments of US internet stakeholders for emerging themes and implications.

While the USA exemplified the OECD guidance by reaching out to all internet stakeholders, most of whom call for a neutral internet and reduce innovation barriers through technological and market solutions, the US online copyright protection policies are expected to bring incentives fairly to all internet stakeholders rather than the historically weighted copyright holders and content industries.

This study is the first academic effort in exploring the US practice of the OECD innovation guidelines by identifying online copyright and innovation policies. The implications of this study are valuable to not only the internet policy‐makers of the OECD member countries but also emerging economies, especially like China which desires long‐term innovation but keeps censoring the internet with its growing firewall.

Much of the criticism directed toward banking in China revolves around self-dealing in relationships between bankers and their clients. Corruption, nepotism, high levels of non-performing loans, and the inefficiency of government-directed lending have all been laid at the door of embedded guanxi networks. While valid to an extent, this criticism ignores two important, related points: guanxi networks bring disciplining mechanisms as well as the potential for corruption, and those mechanisms may improve banking governance.

Employing theory from relationship banking, information economics, and the business ethics of guanxi, I examine how monitoring by netizens will lead to greater disclosure.

Relationship banking in a Chinese context – with the influence of guanxi in banking – further increases reputational costs when self-dealing is uncovered. Costs of bad banking behavior are increasing just as benefits from staying rich increase. Increased disclosure affects chances of staying rich as disclosure increases the chance that a corrupt relationship will lead to loss of wealth and reputation.

This paper presents a theoretical construct informed by selected examples. An empirical analysis of netizen monitoring leading to improved banking governance would provide additional support for the theoretical construct.

Bankers, financiers, and government officials must be aware of monitoring by netizens, which forces more ethical financial contracting.

Rather than weakening financial system governance, guanxi may begin to strengthen the disciplinary measures inherent in relationship banking as information disclosure increases and private sector monitoring grows.

This paper provides an extension to private monitoring theory in financial contracting which may be applied to netizen monitoring in other regions and countries.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of the splintering of the global internet into sovereign, government-controlled islands on the communications strategies and tactics of global corporations.

The approach taken was to review the various ways in which powerful authoritarian regimes such as Russia and China are controlling the Web to dissect the ways in which this could impact corporations.

The author believes that unless governments, civil entities and corporations collaborate to develop common standards for free speech and privacy, the Web as we know it today will cease to exist.

The research is based on selected books and articles reviewed by the author and is not comprehensive.

Corporations will need to examine the impact of these developments on their own communications needs and strategies to develop the collaborations proposed.

Without a universal global internet, the ability of citizens across the world to exchange ideas and develop strategies to tackle global problems will be severely curtailed.

The author does not believe that the splintering of the internet has been considered from the perspective of the global corporation.

This paper seeks to serve as an introduction to a networking platform called iBridge, recently launched by the administrative office of Zhongguancun Haidian Science Park (HSP) in Beijing, China. With the goal of enabling knowledge sharing and collaboration between members and businesses across the world, iBridge has evolved to include features such as communities, blogs, search, recommendation and content customization. The emergence of iBridge is viewed in the context of China's national innovation policy, paying specific attention to the role that collaboration plays as a means of fostering the exchange of ideas and innovation. The paper also aims to discuss the challenges involved in adopting this approach.

The information for this paper was gathered through visits by the author to HSP in 2006 and 2008, as well as through secondary written and web‐based sources.

The paper finds that, since its inception in 2006, the iBridge platform has incorporated many new features and increased its membership substantially. It is anticipated that Web 2.0 features, such as blogs and community forums, will encourage greater levels of innovation as iBridge membership increases.

No empirical evidence is presented in this paper to support the claim that iBridge has increased innovation. However, a greater exchange of ideas is expected, as a “network effect” takes hold and the platform grows in terms of functionality and usage.

The iBridge platform is still in its infancy, having a very limited member base. While it has started to gain notoriety in the high‐tech community within China, it has still not received much international attention. With this paper the iBridge platform will be known to a wider audience.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the Chinese and American efforts in keeping the balance of innovation and copyright protection, with an emphasis on China's strategies under Western, especially American pressure. The research findings are expected to enhance mutual efforts from the two countries to protect copyright and boost innovation and facilitate genuine communication between both sides in their decade‐long intellectual property right (IPR) disputes.

For data collection, this study adopted in‐depth interviews of 45 participants who were either copyright holders as publishers and authors, or ordinary consumers in China. Under the theoretical guidance of strategies and tactics, thematic analysis was used to reveal the emerging themes in the transcripts concerning Chinese cultural perceptions of copyright in general and the relationship between innovation incentives and copyright protection in particular.

First, both countries used strategies for the calculation and manipulation of power in the enactment and implementation of their copyright laws. Second, in order to defend their own interests and obtain national advantages, both countries made full use of various tactics. It is promising for the large developing countries like China to implement and enforce their copyright law and other IPR regulations more effectively under global bargaining and collaborating.

Since little research has been done on the hidden agenda in the USA‐China copyright disputes, this paper attempts to fill this void by exploring the genuine intentions of both the USA and China in the enactment and implementation of their respective copyright laws and the strategies taken for their communication with the relevant parties at different stages of their own IPR development.

Technological firms increasingly depend on open innovation to compete in hypercompetitive markets. To openly engage the creativity of a multitude of private actors, firms can rely on crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing challenges global companies as they span organizational boundaries to attract multiple local partners. Global companies must engage in boundary spanning to successfully communicate and create a sense of community with smaller local partners despite status and cultural differences. The collaboration between Google and developers in China deserves to be studied in particular, because it operates within a restricted market.

This paper argues that crowdsourcing for innovation on a global scale requires effective boundary spanning capabilities. These boundary-spanning practices ensure smooth cooperation with the crowd and solve problems relating to differences in status and organizational contexts. This study applies Bourdieu's theory of practice including the concept of capital (economic, intellectual, social and symbolic) to understand the social relationships between Google and a growing community of Chinese developers. It also draws on a case study including ten semistructured interviews, which have been triangulated with internal documents and data from selected websites.

Four types of capital (symbolic, intellectual, social and economic) have been identified as important devices to understand the sources of power and the stakes of Googlers and developers in the joint field. These types of capital contribute to structure the social fields in which developers and Google cooperate and their practice. The success of the collaboration between Google and Chinese developers can arguably be attributed to Google's ability to create boundary-spanning activities in order to reduce the endowment differential in the four types of capital and improve their communication. Therefore, this research provides a deep and conceptualized description of boundary-spanning practices, as well as providing a useful contribution for managers involved in crowdsourcing via platform in culturally different markets.

The main limitation of this study is methodological in nature, relating to the absence of interviews with board members of Google China who are reluctant to speak about Google activities in China for political raisons. This restriction is partly counterbalanced by the analysis of publicly available secondary data such as news and communications.

This research has generated practical recommendations for managers of organizations, which require optimal boundary spanning for crowdsourcing. Managers must understand the different sources of social boundaries between their organization and the crowd. The crowd should be segmented into smaller groups with distinctive identities, and organizations should systematically design boundary-spanning activities to address each boundary of each segment. The boundary-spanning activities involve a specific set of tools, programs and platforms to address the target group. Efficient boundary spanning depends on the necessity to select boundary spanners with high cultural intelligence and communication skills.

This paper draws on Bourdieu's theory of practice to investigate the role of boundary spanning in crowdsourcing for innovation, specifically in the joint field between Google and Chinese developers. This research reveals how boundary objects such as developer documents, websites, programs and events are essential for developers to be able to participate on Google's platform. Companies should be prepared to invest in the design and delivery of boundary-spanning activities and objects, knowing that these are also a locus for negotiation with local partners.

This research contributes to the literature by applying the boundary-spanner theory to Google crowdsourcing practices within a restricted market. Bourdieu's theory of practice has proven to be a potent perspective with which to better understand the positive role of boundary spanners in the joint field between Google and Chinese developers. Moreover, this practice perspective has not been used in prior research to highlight power relations in crowdsourcing for innovation. This study has shown that, in addition to boundary objects, boundary spanners can also contribute in the transfer of intellectual capital, which is the pivotal resource for boundary spanning in this field.