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The purpose of this paper is to examine knowledge sharing with external partners within the China context, demonstrating that paternalistic leadership combined with the resulting reciprocal relations between leaders and employees are accountable for knowledge transfer with external partners based on social exchange.

This study collected data at two time-points and obtained 391 usable observations for hypothesis testing using questionnaire surveys administered to the managers of major Chinese companies.

Empirical analysis of employees at major Chinese firms shows that paternalistic leadership may encourage perceived reciprocal support from employees that results in smooth knowledge sharing with outsiders in the form of voluntary helping behaviors.

This study expects that both scholars and practitioners will gain answers on how to best encourage employees into contributing toward relationships with external stakeholders within the China context. One valuable point in this study is demonstrating that Chinese firms’ benevolent leadership promotes human relationships and thereby long-term relationships with alliance partners, while their moral leadership promotes ethical trust between alliance partners. These factors may accordingly further increase knowledge sharing opportunities with external partners.

This study aims to investigate how three critical governance decisions by foreign firms impacted their survivability post-initial public offerings (IPO): the choice of CEO (founder vs non-founder); the power the founder CEO wields relative to the board in terms of CEO duality; and board size.

This study uses data from 86 foreign firms that completed IPOs in the US market between 2000 and 2008 and adopts a Cox proportional hazards model to examine how the founder, founder CEO duality and board size influence foreign firm delisting post-IPO.

A founder CEO or a founder CEO with duality (i.e. when a founder CEO is also chair of the board of directors) does not support a foreign firm’s survival post-IPO. Expectedly, board size has a negative impact on post-IPO firm survivability; however, founder CEO duality positively moderates this negative relationship. Therefore, founder CEO duality plays a positive indirect role in the context of post-IPO firms with large boards.

First, while the benefits of CEO duality have been empirically ambiguous, this study clarifies how founder CEO duality manifests its positive impacts in foreign listings. Second, by focusing on board cognition, this study confirms the negative impact of large boards, but highlights that this can be mitigated by governance leadership structure. Finally, despite organizational life-cycle theorists’ advocacy of the replacement of founder CEOs with professional CEOs in sizable ventures, this study shows the benefits of their retention when the board is large.