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This paper aims to focus on formation motivations and processes of R&D consortia to appreciate their differential innovative and learning capabilities.

The paper presents its argument in two separate steps. First, a two‐by‐two framework, comprising four consortium types, is developed based on two formation motivations (i.e. risk sharing and networking) and two formation processes (i.e. emergent and engineered). Four case vignettes are used to demonstrate the practical relevance of the two‐by‐two consortium typology framework. Second, the innovative and learning capabilities of each of these consortia are explored and eight propositions are advanced.

The paper introduces four types of consortia: community builders, gamblers, visible hands, and opportunists. It is argued that visible hands generate greater innovation than community builders and opportunists, and community builders and opportunists generate greater innovation than gamblers. It is also argued that government involvement moderates the relationship between consortia type and innovative capabilities in an inverted U shape. Lastly, relative appropriateness of frequency, outcome, and trait imitations to facilitate organization‐level learning among consortium members is explored.

The main contribution of this paper lies in its two‐by‐two typology of consortium formation contextual conditions. Instead of focusing on evolutionary cycles and performance issues of consortia, this paper draws research attention to contextual conditions surrounding consortia formation. Consortium formation contextual conditions are critically important because they predetermine the life cycle and performance trajectory of consortia. This paper also links innovation and learning dynamics in consortia.

The purpose of this paper is to review the evolution of policies and practices of innovation in China for the past 40 years.

This is a review paper. It adopts a different multi-dimensional, qualitative methodology to examine China’s trajectory of innovation from the economic reform since 1978, highlighting “China” experiences in the developing innovation-driven economy, also pointing the challenges that China faces in this transition process and future prospects. The analysis of China’s innovation performance was based mostly on secondary data from sources and institutions that use statistical data to build country rankings, such as the global innovation index and global competitiveness index.

It is found that the institutional foundations of the national innovation system in China are already being laid, and so far, China has made extraordinary progress regarding innovation performance from country to region and from business to individual. However, some critical challenges in its innovation-driven development still need urgent attention and effective efforts to reinforce them.

This paper aims to fill the gap in the literature by providing an overview of the evolution of the policies and practices of innovation development in China since the 1978 economic reforms and explores the Chinese experiences in transforming into an innovation-driven economy.

This paper illuminates the distinction between individual and organizational actors in business-to-business markets as well as the coexistence of formal and informal mechanisms of coordination in multinational corporations. The main questions addressed include the following. (1) What factors influence the occurrence of personal contacts of foreign subsidiary managers in industrial multinational corporations? (2) How such personal contacts enable coordination in industrial markets and within multinational firms? The theoretical context of the paper is based on: (1) the interaction approach to industrial markets, (2) the network approach to industrial markets, and (3) the process approach to multinational management. The unit of analysis is the foreign subsidiary manager as the focal actor of a contact network. The paper is empirically focused on Portuguese sales subsidiaries of Finnish multinational corporations, which are managed by either a parent country national (Finnish), a host country national (Portuguese) or a third country national. The paper suggests eight scenarios of individual dependence and uncertainty, which are determined by individual, organizational, and/or market factors. Such scenarios are, in turn, thought to require personal contacts with specific functions. The paper suggests eight interpersonal roles of foreign subsidiary managers, by which the functions of their personal contacts enable inter-firm coordination in industrial markets. In addition, the paper suggests eight propositions on how the functions of their personal contacts enable centralization, formalization, socialization and horizontal communication in multinational corporations.

The purpose of this paper is to contrast the historical rise of the managerial function and its reception in law. It thus contributes to the debates on the separation of ownership and control, by showing that managers were never recognized in law. As a result, the managerial function was not protected in law.

This paper brings together management history and the history of UK company law to study the emergence of management in the early twentieth century and the law’s response. The authors bring new historical evidence to bear on the company law reforms of the second half of the twentieth century and, in particular, on the changes inspired by the Cohen Committee report of 1945.

Scientific progress and innovation were important rationales for the emergence of managerial authority. They implied new economic models, new competencies and wider social responsibilities. The analysis of this paper shows that these rationales have been overlooked by company law. The lack of conceptualization of the management in law allowed reforms after 1945 that gave shareholders greater influence over corporate strategy, reducing managerial discretion and the scope for innovation.

This paper focuses on the UK. Further research is needed to confirm whether other countries followed a similar path, both in terms of the emergence of management and in terms of the law’s approach.

This paper is the first, to the authors’ knowledge, to examine the law’s historical approach to management. It calls for a reappraisal of the status of managers and the way corporate governance organizes the separation of ownership and control.

For the past three decades, the dominant economic policy environment across the Anglosphere has assumed that industrial performance results from increasing national competitiveness. The US Government and others have extensively used the tools of deregulation that emerged from the influential frameworks of Michael Porter and the Chicago School. That both the contributing analysis and attendant policy environment largely neglected the very source of national disadvantage, mostly Japanese industry in the 1970s and 1980s, remains surprising. What was going on in Japan at the time, and to some extent continues today, remains largely hidden. The aim of this paper is to expose one source of Japan’s influential competitive advantage – the human resource.

This paper, through the translation of a Japanese-language paper by Professor Emeritus Masaki Saruta, introduces the Japanese phenomenon of managed education in Aichi Prefecture, home of the Toyota Motor Corporation, and provides insight into the lifestyles of the Japanese workers who live and work in corporate castle towns that feed Toyota. Inductive content analysis was used to identify four themes that can be identified as the strategies used to produce a homogenous pool of labor that sustains the Toyota Way philosophy and Toyota Production System.

The content analysis identified four major themes: Toyota’s abnormal level of influence over local government, a unique education system of education management, a closed labor market and the homogeneity of labor. It is only now that business leaders in the Anglosphere are able to comprehend the vastness and depth of inculcation and nurturing policies of Toyota and other Japanese industrial giants – something business leaders in the Anglosphere today can only dream. It now becomes evident that Chandler’s visible hand remains alive and well, but critical drivers of its success in Japan and Toyota were largely invisible to the West.

The research required the knowledge of one of Saruta’s works that is only published in Japanese, and therefore, inaccessible to researchers in the Anglosphere. The translation process and development of themes is reported in detail. The findings are then located in the broad context of national competitive advantage.

With the insight presented in this paper, business and government leaders may now be empowered to implement policies and practices to nurture a pool of labor more conducive with the organizational strategic policy. While leaders in the Anglosphere are able to implement policy, there also remains a new threat to economic sovereignty – the nurturing of human resources in the dormitories, refectories and shopping malls of industrial China.

The development of a company-focused workforce to support corporate castle towns, one of the sources of national advantage, has been identified in this paper. The social implications are twofold. First, in Japan, the nature and influence of these towns are accepted and heralded by the community. Second, outside of Japan, and especially across the Anglosphere, these towns are a major source of competitive advantage.

Through the translation of original research published in the Japanese-language medium, this research provides otherwise inaccessible insight into the inner workings and effectively the “black box” of what was Japan Inc. in an era when business people in the West were playing catchup. As the debate on globalization extends to sovereignty across the Anglosphere, it is beholden on the academic community to provide effective solutions for industrial competitiveness.

Henry’s Freedom Box: A True Story from the Underground Railroad recounts the remarkable story of a Richmond slave who shipped himself in a wooden crate to Philadelphia to escape slavery in the south. After participating in a pre-reading activity designed to enhance critical thinking skills, students will read not only the notable trade book, but also other versions of Henry’s narrative. Students will use and will evaluate alternative sources. Students also will analyze illustrations, comparing and contrasting the interpretation of this historical event. A data retrieval chart and culminating discussion will allow students to detect source variation, to evaluate how critical the differences are between sources, and to determine which sources are credible.

The purpose of this paper is to examine and discuss the responses and strategies firms use in relation to their supply base when dealing with current trends in the business landscape, and the different options that they have.

The paper draws on case study research of a company within the international health care sector to illustrate the relationship between trends, supply base characteristics and supply base strategies.

The paper presents a framework for a systematic approach that companies can use to develop supply base strategies. The framework illustrates that developing supply base strategies is a dynamic process that not only involves individual actions by the buying company, but also requires close interaction with suppliers.

Previous literature has not specified how different trends affect a company’s supply base in terms of increased complexity and (inter)dependence, and which supply base strategies companies use and the options that they have. The research presented here contributes to fill this void.

Some economic theories have influenced the reform of the socialist open economy with Chinese characteristics. As a new practice of socialism, an open economy is not only driven by China’s productivity level and people’s living standards but also regulated by the law of commodity production and value.

It was popular to participate in economic globalization for most countries in the second half of the 20th century, but not all of them could benefit from it.

The key to the success of the open-economy reform with Chinese characteristics lies in learning from and innovating the comparative advantage theory, thus forming an organic whole of the open economy, including the core of correctly handling the relationship between the government and the market, the method of gradual reform, the breakthrough point of transforming the mode of economic development, and serving people all the time.

Achieving internal and external coordination through the combination of opening-up and independence is a critical principle of China’s economic opening-up, which not only effectively safeguards national interests but also actively promotes the construction of a new global order.

This paper aims to trace the historical roots of African American management by examining managerial practices and experiences described in the letters of Benjamin Thornton Montgomery, a former slave who eventually became manager and, ultimately, owner of the Hurricane plantation.

The method used is the historical archival method of analysis, primarily the examination of a series of letters written by Montgomery during the 1865‐1870 time periods. These letters, which document the foundation and emergence of African American management during the Emancipation age, are for the first time presented as a source of management history.

Contrary to traditional thoughts of the insignificance of the plantation era to the history of management, the analysis indicates that Montgomery's management practices were quite sophisticated as they incorporated classical management principles of planning, delegation, leadership, and control.

This paper provides insights concerning the historical roots of management practices during the African American Emancipation period which could provide contemporary managers with a more realistic foundation of management practice.

The principal contribution of this investigation is the historical awareness of the documented roots of African American management represented by Montgomery's competence and perseverance to manage effectively while withstanding impeding racial attacks.

The purpose of this paper is further leveraging the advantages of the basic socialist economic system and exploring the realistic way of transforming the advantages of the socialist economic system with Chinese characteristics into governance efficacy. At its Fourth Plenary Session, the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) elevated the socialist market economy system to China's basic economic system, further affirming the significant advantages embedded in the socialist market economy from an institutional perspective.

The essence of the basic socialist economic system consists of the ownership structure with public ownership as the mainstay, the income distribution system with distribution according to work as the mainstay and the socialist market economy, which are interrelated, supportive and reinforcing mutually, forming an organic whole.

Over the past 40 years of reform and opening-up, it has been proven through practice that the basic socialist economic system has played a fundamental role in guaranteeing rapid economic development and social stability. The system not only corresponds to the development level of the productive forces in the primary stage of socialism in China but also demonstrates its strengths in eliminating polarization between the poor and the rich and achieving common prosperity.

It is necessary to make the basic economic system more coordinated and consistent and be committed to the philosophy that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts to form a systemic synergy, so as to achieve synergistic enhancement of institutional advantages and governance efficacy.