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The purpose of this study is to promote Chinese indigenous research by examining a case in which adopting social capital (SC) scales developed in the Western context for Chinese samples can decontextualize inter-firm guanxi management in the Chinese context.

Adopting the existing Western scales to measure SC, we collected data from Chinese executives participating in executive master of business administration programs on buyer–supplier relationship. Using the same items and data source, we identified post hoc factors representing guanxi dimensions. Ordinary least squared regressions were used for both guanxi and SC dimensions to test the hypotheses.

Our analysis showed that Chinese natives responded to the Western SC items according to their understanding and mindsets rooted in guanxi. This was evidenced by the results from the post hoc-derived guanxi dimensions with the same data, which show better regression results for the hypotheses tested, although the construct validity was comparable. Adopting Western SC measurement scales deconceptualized the intricate Chinese context and inter-firm interactions.

It is inappropriate to borrow Western-developed scales for Chinese HRM research due to intricate differences in contexts. Doing so may run the risk of ignoring the Chinese context regarding the mechanisms and processes of complex human interactions, although it may produce superficial results consistent with the Western literature. Developing indigenous measurement scales should be considered not only as a preference but also as a requirement for Chinese management research.

We empirically compared the difference between Western-developed measurement scales and a Chinese indigenous construct, as well as their impact on relationship management in relation to indigenous Chinese management research.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to a better understanding of competitive strategy and performance measurement in the Malaysian context by applying a modified version of Conant et al's generic strategy scale and categorizing Malaysian firms along the Miles and Snow business strategy typology.

Competitive strategy and performance measurement were assessed via survey. A total of 975 firms were randomly selected from the directory of Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers (FMM) as listed in 2003. Overall, 133 surveys were returned, 120 of which were usable for analysis.

Results suggest that Malaysian firms view competitive strategy differently and are more likely than their Western counterparts to emphasize the use of financial measures of organizational performance. Findings also highlight the difficulties faced when Western measurement scales are employed in non‐Western emerging nations.

Because greater emphasis was placed on financial rather than non‐financial measures, results indicate a statistically significant different improvement only in sales growth and ROI performance among the three strategy categories. Strategy researchers should focus their attention to the use of multiple performance measures in assessing firm's performance as shown by the significant different in the use of customer satisfaction and loyalty measures, as well as employee satisfaction and training measures.

These findings hold relevance for executives responsible for the formulation and implementation of business strategy. A better understanding of the relationship between business strategy and performance measures using the BSC perspectives of measures has been provided. The study provides some useful insights into the role of performance measures. In addition, this study conveys the message to top managers and designers of performance measurement tools–most notably the balanced scorecard– should pay particular attention to non‐financial performance measures in implementing their organization's strategy.

This paper aims to develop, refine and validate a multidimensional scale for measuring students’ attitude toward educational debt for higher studies in Punjab (India) and the impact of this attitude on the satisfaction of students.

The study uses interview and survey approach. The sample comprises 417 students from four public and four private universities of Punjab (India). Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis have been used to develop and validate students’ attitude toward education loan scale (Morgado et al., 2017). Further, structural equation modeling (SEM) has been used to analyze the impact of factors of students’ attitude on their satisfaction.

The scale has been tested for both reliability and validity. Analysis has revealed six factors of students’ attitude toward educational debt, namely, economic empowerment, social empowerment, utility, procedural requirements, risk and stress. These, six independent variables and one dependent variable, i.e. students’ satisfaction, were entered into structural equation model. The structural equation model shows that procedural requirements, economic empowerment and utility have a positive, whereas stress has a negative and significant impact on the students’ satisfaction.

Education financing is a gigantic problem nowadays due to the high cost of self-financing courses in Punjab. To make higher education accessible to all students, education loan plays a vital role. Thus, the attitude of students is of great importance to policymakers to bring reforms in education loan scheme.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the foremost study for developing a validated tool to measure the students’ attitude toward educational debt in India.

The purpose of this paper is to present a new framework for representing music for information retrieval that emphasizes socio-cultural aspects of music.

Philosophical and theoretical concepts related to the nature of music, aboutness, musical works are explored as they inform how music is represented. Multidisciplinary perspectives on music information representation, classification, and retrieval provide insight into how information science can better accommodate music information within its disciplinary boundaries.

A new term, music information object (MIO), is presented and defined. Downie’s (2003) theoretical statements are reconceptualized into a theory of representational incompleteness and three meta-classes for music information object representation.

This new framework incorporates more dimensions of music representation than existing frameworks allow and can facilitate comparisons between classifications of MIO representations by music practitioners, scholars, and system developers.

The meta-classes form a much-needed theoretical framework for classifying and defining MIOs from any musical tradition for retrieval. This fills a gap in music information retrieval research, which lacks a theoretical framework that can accommodate musics from all traditions without attempting to organize them according to a western-centered understanding.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the utility of a selection instrument in predicting service and technologically oriented performance in technologically oriented businesses in mainland China and Japan.

Data was collected from 262 employees in mainland China and 236 employees in Japan pertaining to their service and technology orientations with regard to on‐the‐job performance in a high technology management environment. Employees completed a personality‐oriented employment questionnaire that has been previously examined.

Each dimension predicted performance in both samples, although the structures were not consistent across the two countries. In China, the seven dimensions consist of extroversion, emotional stability, the desire to make good impressions on others, conscientiousness, life satisfaction, performance orientation, and helpfulness. In Japan, the seven dimensions consisted of extroversion, emotional stability, the desire to make good impressions on others, conscientiousness, closed mindedness, empathy, and helpfulness. Results from multiple regression analyses suggested that substantially less of the variance in service‐oriented and technologically oriented performance could be explained in China than in Japan.

Researchers and practitioners alike should be careful when applying surveys developed and validated in western countries because they may not measure the same constructs in China. Further, although countries in Asia share physical proximity, their cultures are so diverse that the utility of such assessments may vary substantially from one country to another.

There is a dearth of empirical research examining on‐the‐job performance in China. This paper, however, adds to the literature by examining high technology businesses in China and demonstrating how their internal processes may differ both from western organizations and those in other Asian cultures.

Cosmopolitanism is on the rise in India and traditionally shoppers have been known to patronize local stores. There is a need therefore to see the effect of cosmopolitanism and culture in context of loyalty towards local stores. Grocery items constitute major portion of purchase from local stores, therefore, pricing was also considered as a variable affecting store loyalty. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

The paper used conclusive approach using a structured questionnaire for survey. The sample consisted of 710 respondents. There was almost an equal representation of both genders and also of metropolitan and non-metropolitan consumers.

Culture and price affected local store loyalty directly. Cosmopolitanism was not found to have direct effect on loyalty. Within cultural dimensions, masculinity emerged as the most dominating trait. Minor modifications in cultural scale and major modifications in local store loyalty and cosmopolitanism are also suggested.

The study focuses only on three factors: price, culture, and cosmopolitanism. It does not examine influence of variables like personal values, lifestyle, and personality on local store loyalty behaviour. The research did not examine relationship between nature and type of product purchase decisions and its impact on store choice.

Local stores need not be unduly worried with the incoming of organized players. The organized players should try to be cheaper and learn some tactics of local stores like customization, etc. There is a case for allowing FDI in multi-brand retail.

Cosmopolitanism not affecting the local store loyalty directly is the original contribution of the paper. The finding casts doubts on the growth strategy of organized retailers who are opening new stores with the thinking that cosmopolitan consumer will shop from them instead of local retailers.

Sex appeal has been widely used in most countries. However, little is known about consumers' responses to sex appeal advertising in different cultures. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of sex appeal on ad and brand evaluation among Australian, Chinese and US consumers.

The paper adopted a three (Australia, China and the USA) × two (male or female model) × two (low or high level of sex appeal) between‐group factorial design.

Australian, Chinese and US consumers have significantly different attitudes when exposed to the same ad. However, consumer buying intentions towards the advertised brand are not significantly different. Despite the general assumption that Chinese consumers might react least favourably to sex appeal ads, this paper finds that they hold similar attitudes towards sex appeal ads as US consumers and even more favourable attitudes than Australian consumers. Product involvement is found to be a significant covariate.

The sample includes young consumers, who may be more tolerant to sex appeal advertising than older generations in China. A similar situation may exist in Australia and the USA.

Understanding how consumers in different cultures respond to different advertising appeal strategies is important for international advertisers.

This is the first reported empirical study that compares Chinese consumers' responses to sex appeal advertising with those in Western countries. Findings add to the understanding of the standardisation‐localisation debate.

The authors study the role of collectivistic norms and beliefs on organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) in Mexico, including differences across gender and generations.

The authors researched the relationship between Mexican employees' collectivistic norms and beliefs and their OCBs, which the authors grouped into etic (universal), emic (regional) and unique (indigenous) categories, the latter referred to as Mexican OCBs (MOCBs). The authors also studied the role of gender and generations as moderators.

Collective norms had a positive relationship only on the etic OCBs of sportsmanship, while collective beliefs impacted altruism and civic virtue; the etic OCBs of personal development, protecting company resources, interpersonal harmony; and the MOCBs of dedication and camaraderie. Collective beliefs on the etic OCB of altruism, the emic OCB of protecting company resources and the unique MOCB of camaraderie were stronger for workers from Xers than for Millennials. Moderation tests also showed that collective belief had stronger effects on the emic OCB of protecting company resources and the unique MOCBs of dedication and camaraderie for men than for women.

Gender roles in emerging economies where society is characterized by collectivistic attributes, especially in a sample drawn from professional employees, may have changed. This could explain the reason why most of the interactions were stronger for men. Future studies involving gender roles should look beyond a demographic variable and design an instrument measuring self-perceptions of role identity, such as the Bem Sex Role Inventory (Bem, 1974). This study's findings could be generalized, particularly, to other Latin American nations, but scholars should acknowledge differences in economic development and gender roles, as well as unique cultural elements (Arriagada, 2014; Hofstede, 1980).

The results of this study yield three practical implications for international managers, including (1) distinguishing between the impact of changing cultural norms or beliefs on OCBs, (2) understanding how demographic factors such as gender or generation may influence the degree of OCBs exhibited in the workplace by specific employee groups, and (3) identifying cultural contexts which promote OCBs. First, workers from a younger generation in a collectivistic society, such as Millennials, respond less positively than workers from older generations to cultural beliefs concerning OCBs, such that they are less willing to engage in a particular category of OCBs including protecting company resources.

Global managers should be aware that employees engage in distinct OCBs for different reasons. Emphasizing cultural rules and norms behind helping one another may backfire in Mexico, particularly among men and younger generations of workers. This is understandable for these OCBs. For example, engaging in personal development for the organization's sake due to collective norms may be less effective that pursuing personal development opportunities that employees are passionate about or recognize as beneficial for their careers. Dedication and sportsmanship behaviors that stem from rules are likely less strong or effective as OCBs employees engage in due to strong beliefs or altruistic spontaneity.

The authors filled a gap in scholar's understanding of cultural norms and beliefs on behavior. Specifically, the authors found that cultural beliefs shape etic, emic and unique MOCBs, particularly for men and older generations, and that cultural norms have a negligible and sometimes negative role, being positively related only to the etic OCB of sportsmanship.

The purpose of this paper is to preliminary explain the possibly complicated moderating effects of job resources. The paper specifies the missing link between job demand and burnout by focusing on the coping strategy argument.

The paper preliminary supports the mediated moderation model of the missing link by a large sample cross‐sectional survey.

The two coping strategies as mediators for the relationship between emotional demands and exhaustion are supported. Strong supports for the moderation effect of emotional intelligence on the relationship between emotional demands and the two coping strategies are found. Some support for the moderation of supervisor support on the relationship between deep acting and exhaustion are found.

The paper contributes to the job demands‐control‐support and job demands‐resources models, as the proposed model helps to explain the inconsistent results for the buffering effect of job resources found in the literature. It also contributes to the literature of emotional intelligence, as it provides clear evidence of its importance in handling emotional demands.

Deep acting is important. An organization may take more efforts in training employees to equip them with it. Emotional intelligence is also a vital resource and so organizations may benefit if they engage in relevant selection and training practices.

Emotional intelligence, an individual ability, is empirically demonstrated to be an important type of job resources that can buffer the negative effect of job demands on employee well‐being.

The purpose of this paper is to improve the understanding of the mediating role of the extensiveness of strategic planning on the relationship between slack resources and organizational performance.

The study uses empirical data gathered from 102 usable replies from private and also public hospitals in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The findings indicate the existence of a positive relationship between slack resources and organizational performance and show that the extensiveness of strategic planning plays a mediating role in this relationship.

The authors highlight the exploratory nature of the study considering its unusual setting, namely, the UAE’s health care sector.

Several implications of the findings for managerial and policy practices in the UAE health care sector are discussed.

This study contributes to the existing literature on management, health care, and developing countries by examining the role of the extensiveness of strategic planning in mediating the relationship between slack resources and organizational performance in the health care industry of a developing country.