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The purpose of this article is to put forward China’s Hanyu Pinyin word guanli as an academic basic term to the world.

GUANLI as an academic basic term, which holds multiple meanings of several English words, such as management, administration, governance, etc. As a basic term, GUANLI, derived several words, such as GUANLIOLOGY, GUANLIST/GUANLIER and GUANLIWORK/GUANLIJOB, to precisely and exactly convey the Chinese GUANLI ideas. It is the historical mission and opportunity for the authors to research and establish the Chinese School of Modern GUANLI Science (CSMGS).

It is inevitably necessary to build the combined Chinese–Western discourse system of GUANLI science (CCWDSGS). Some other research results of CSMGS are also presented in this paper.

It is needless to say that there are still lots of problems in China, including in the GUANLI field. These problems will gradually be solved in China’s reform and development that takes place continuously. New problems will come up while old problems are being solved and settled; problems producing in a loop, problems solving in a loop, this is the dialectics. The authors have full confidence in solving problems, as well as in China’s development and future.

Practice comes first and then it is followed by theory. The authors first have the “China Model”, followed by the “Chinese School” consequently. The “China Model” has already been there, and the “Chinese School” relies on the author’s proactive research and innovation. It is just the right time for the authors to study and create the CSMGS. This is the historical mission and opportunity awaited by contemporary Chinese.

Disruptive technology and innovation represent complex conflicts in nature. This paper aims to present an analytical review of the heterogeneity and conflicts that exist in the disruptive technology/innovation between the eastern and western countries using Chinese high-speed railways to illustrate disruptive innovation.

The emerging economy brings about other theoretical and practical conflicts. Qualitative analysis is conducted on Chinese high-speed railways to assess the validity of innovation characteristics using Professor Clayton M. Christensen’s theories of disruptive technology/innovation and conflict. The authors explore the conflicts that can accompany the introduction of disruptive technologies in the current platform and how appropriately this specific context can lessen these conflicts.

The study revealed that Christensen’s theories could be applied 100per cent to the Chinese context if the western disruptive innovation theory can meet the practical requirements of Chinese disruptive technology/innovation. Qualitative analysis showed that Chinese high-speed railways had experienced greater success with disruptive innovation mechanism. The authors conclude that while the Chinese market is critical in shaping the kind of innovations that are emerging there, many disruptive technologies/innovations in China have their roots in the low-end market and new market. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

There exists a research gap in the literature on the Chinese context. Conflict of disruptive technology and innovation within China and the characteristics of the Chinese high-speed railway prompt further research for scholars and practitioners.

China has become the world’s largest vehicle market, because of the strong governmental support to boost car sales and particularly because of the establishment of joint ventures between state-owned enterprises and world-class automakers. However, because many Sino-foreign joint ventures have performed unsatisfactorily in terms of creating indigenous brands, the purpose of this paper is to explore the cause-and-effect relationships among governmental policy support, Sino-foreign joint ventures and own-brand innovation in China’s passenger-car industry.

After briefly introducing the development history of the Chinese auto industry and reviewing relevant literature, first, the analytic hierarchy process method is used to create a unique, context-specific equation to measure the degree of policy support in China. This paper then uses the hierarchical multiple regression method to process the 2014 public data set.

The findings show that the degree of policy support increases the preference of the firms for producing foreign-brand cars, while such a relationship is fully mediated by the establishment of Sino-foreign joint ventures.

The research brings greater and deeper insights into the interplay among governmental policy, the conduct of own-brand strategy and international joint ventures in China’s auto market, showing that policy support may not always be beneficial, but sometimes be detrimental to indigenous innovation.

This paper can be seen as an exciting step that adds to a better understanding of the role of political support in shaping the strategic choices of firms in terms of brand innovation in the Chinese automobile industry. The proposed novel, context-specific approach for evaluating the degree of policy support embodies the distinctive institutional complexity and intricate social network embedded in the local car market during the period of China’s socio-economic transformation – an approach that is original in this field.

This paper aims to introduce ten studies included in this themed issue that illustrate from multifaceted angles some critical management issues and context-specific challenges on strategy and innovation facing the State and enterprises during China’s socio-economic transition. Instead of focusing on topics from the literature, this special issue (SI) pays more attention to characterising unique Chinese business practices in the transformation period.

The ten manuscripts were selected for this SI so that readers can compare how scholars used different research designs and multiple analytical and statistical approaches to draw conclusions.

These studies involve a wide range of aspects, as well as diversified perspectives demonstrating some critical management issues and context-specific phenomenon associated with the development of strategy and innovation in contemporary China. The results show that while pollution-related issues have had a damaging effect on China’s business environment, the Chinese government has to enact and enforce stricter environmental laws to promote technology innovation in a healthier manner; moreover, Chinese firms should pay greater attention to the trade-off between the increasing of resource consumption for growth and the reducing of energy use for the sake of the planet. In response to the grand innovation challenges Chinese manufacturing is confronted with, these papers suggest that policy support may not always be beneficial but sometimes detrimental to independent innovation, and that Chinese manufacturers may ultimately get access to the key and core technology of forerunners by forming a R&D strategic alliance in periphery knowledge/technology first. Overall, the outcomes of these studies provide a bigger picture and intriguing implications that may inspire practitioners, policymakers and academics to further ponder relevant issues in a more comprehensive way.

All ten studies based on original data were not reported elsewhere and demonstrated results that have not been addressed in prior research. This paper enriches one’s understanding of how Chinese firms have been deliberately seeking their own distinctive trajectories of developing strategy and innovation dissimilar to those of advanced economy companies, given the peculiar cultural background and institutional systems. Future research trends and opportunities are also outlined.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of near-wall treatment approaches, which are crucial parameters in predicting the flow characteristics of open channels, and the influence of different vegetation covers in different layers.

Ansys Fluent, a computational fluid dynamics software, was used to calculate the flow and turbulence characteristics using a three-dimensional, turbulent (k-e realizable), incompressible and steady-flow assumption, along with various near-wall treatment approaches (standard, scalable, non-equilibrium and enhanced) in the vegetated channel. The numerical study was validated concerning an experimental study conducted in the existing literature.

The numerical model successfully predicted experimental results with relative error rates below 10%. It was determined that nonequilibrium wall functions exhibited the highest predictive success in experiment Run 1, standard wall functions in experiment Run 2 and enhanced wall treatments in experiment Run 3. This study has found that plant growth significantly alters open channel flow. In the contact zones, the velocities and the eddy viscosity are low, while in the free zones they are high. On the other hand, the turbulence kinetic energy and turbulence eddy dissipation are maximum at the solid–liquid interface, while they are minimum at free zones.

This is the first study, to the best of the author’s knowledge, concerning the performance of different near-wall treatment approaches on the prediction of vegetation-covered open channel flow characteristics. And this study provides valuable insights to improve the hydraulic performance of open-channel systems.

The purpose of this paper is to employ a Yin-Yang harmony perspective to propose a novel circled 5C model to understand the unique harmonizing process of how conflicts are resolved in China. Despite increasing research on labor conflicts in Chinese manufacturing, Western theories still can not explain how Chinese culture influences conflict management.

The authors investigate a large manufacturer where a severe labor strike happened in South China. A mixed-methods research design is adopted. The scale of Chinese harmony and analysis of variance are used to identify the underlying unharmonious factors triggering the labor strike. The grounding theory approach (a case study) was adopted to further examine the proposed 5C model.

“Harmony with corporate system”, “Harmony between departments” and “Harmony with firm leader” were found to arouse employee grievances the most. Differences in age, gender, marital status, educational level, tenure and position were discovered to affect workers’ perceptions of workplace harmony. The proposed 5C model was supported.

As a lesson in handling escalating labor conflicts, this study allows foreign investors to better understand how to cope with relevant labor strife issues in China. In addition, this project integrates research with consultancy service, which can be seen as an exciting step forward in bridging academics and practitioners.

Based on Yin-Yang harmony thinking, this study suggests an integrative, context-specific concern – concern for harmony for China to transcend the Western dual-concern model regarding the choice of coping with conflicts. The paper constructs a novel circled 5C model of the Chinese harmonizing process (conflict, clash, communication, comprise and consensus), which characterizes the dynamic, contingent and art-oriented nature of Chinese conflict management.

An alarming number of spreadsheet faults have been reported in the literature, indicating that effective and easy-to-apply spreadsheet testing techniques are not available for “non-technical,” end-user programmers. The purpose of this paper is to alleviate the problem by introducing a metamorphic testing (MT) technique for spreadsheets.

The paper discussed four common challenges encountered by end-user programmers when testing a spreadsheet. The MT technique was then discussed and how it could be used to solve the common challenges was explained. An experiment involving several “real-world” spreadsheets was performed to determine the viability and effectiveness of MT.

The experiment confirmed that MT is highly effective in spreadsheet fault detection, and yet MT is a general technique that can be easily used by end-user programmers to test a large variety of spreadsheet applications.

The paper provides a detailed discussion of some common challenges of spreadsheet testing encountered by end-user programmers. To the best of the authors knowledge, the paper is the first that includes an empirical study of how effective MT is in spreadsheet fault detection from an end-user programmer's perspective.

The purpose of this paper in the editorial review of manuscripts to highlight the emergent aspects of original thinking that provide new perspectives on issues central to management.

A synoptic perspective of a very broad range of topics covered in research by scholars is provided: education, corporate value, quality, corporate social responsibility, risk behavior, managing reputation, expatriation, growth and creativity. In this particular review, the editor emphasizes those facets of the paper that shed original, new light on management. Also, the areas where research provides a theoretical basis for consulting or managerial practice are highlighted to illustrate how research can be of practical relevance.

Some of the insights gained clearly indicate the importance of research. For example, tighter or more rigorous governmental regulations on food quality are unlikely to contribute to the enhancement of firms’ capability in improving food quality. The government needs to do much more than only regulate. Then, there is empirical reaffirmation that guan-xi with government matters: better the relationships, the higher corporate value but only if the firm is in private hands, not for state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Then, the Chinese local firms’ nexus with foreign, and international corporations influences their corporate social performance. Even more fascinating, a bank’s risk behavior is dependent on the structural composition of the board of directors. Indeed, research shows that a gender mix in fact lowers the propensity toward taking a high risk. Then, through reflecting upon their deep researches, the authors derive a theoretic framework for coping with reputation loss following a financial restatement. Here, authors showed SOEs to suffer much more in the event of restatement than the privately owned enterprises. Then, in a piece of innovative research of expatriation, authors relate a spectrum of the Chinese cultural values to performance. In a cross-country (civilization) study, the research motivation is: Whether SMEs in China, India and Pakistan are confronting the same environmental challenges? As expected, the answer would be yes in some aspects and no in others. This a significant finding, as the Chinese are raised on a milieu of suppressing one’s emotions: emotional expressiveness can contribute to creativity!

In this paper, the editor highlights some aspects on the original thinking of the authors within this issue of Chinese Management Studies. Also, the editor highlights on how research contained herein is contributing to managerial (consulting) practice.

Thermal barrier coatings (TBCs), which are used in high temperature applications of gas turbines, are damaged due to fuels and airborne minerals under working conditions. Stable zirconia coatings, which are usually used as topcoat materials in TBCs, are damaged by interacting at high temperatures with elements such as vanadium and sulfur from low quality fuels. The purpose of this paper is to see the failure mechanism of TBC systems after hot corrosion damages.

CoNiCrAlY metallic bond coatings of TBC samples were produced by cold gas dynamic spray method which is a new trend production method and stabilized zirconia ceramic top coating was produced by atmospheric plasma spray method. In total, 50% by weight of V₂O₅ and 50% Na₂SO₄ salt mixtures were placed on TBC samples and subjected to hot corrosion test at 1000°C.

Hot corrosion behaviors of TBC samples were examined by scanning electron microscopy, elemental mapping analysis, energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry analysis and X-ray diffraction analysis. TBC samples were damaged at the end of 12-h cycles.

The paper provides to understand the mechanism of hot corrosion of TBCs with cold sprayed metallic bond coat.

This paper aims to optimize the weighing control system and compensate weighing error for weighing control system of coal mine paste-filling weighing control system.

The process of the paste-filling weighing control system is analyzed and the mathematical model of the paste-filling material weight is established. Then, the back-propagation (BP) neural network is used to optimize the control system and compensate the weighing error.

Without the BP neural network, the weighing error of the paste-filling control system is more than 3 per cent, whereas after optimization with the BP neural network, the weighing error is less than 1 per cent. With the simulation results, it is seen that the weighing error of the paste-filling control system decreases and the accuracy of the weighing control system improves and optimizes.

The method can be further used to improve the control precision of the coal mine paste-filling system.