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Bureaucratic power – the power derived from the formal authority of the bureaucratic organization – has become a central organizing mechanism in modern societies. In this study, we develop theoretical arguments to identify institutional sources as well as limitations of bureaucratic power. We argue that the very institutional sources of bureaucratic power also cultivate the countervailing forces that set limit to the exercise of bureaucratic power in formal organizations. These arguments and considerations are illustrated in two case studies of the “inspection and appraisal” processes in the Chinese bureaucracy. Our study raises issues about organizational isomorphism and calls for a closer look at the behavioral patterns in organizational processes.

Interfirm contracts are a ubiquitous economic institution in market economies. In this study, we examine the determinants of one important aspect of interfirm contracts – contract duration. We begin with Joskow's (1987) study that demonstrated that contract duration is governed by mechanisms that economize transaction costs. Our study extends Joskow's study in several ways: First, while Joskow's study focuses on one particular area of extreme resource dependence, between the coal mine and the power company, we examine patterns of contract duration and their determinants across broader economic sectors, thereby providing a more general test of the key ideas in transaction cost economics. Second, we investigate the role of social institutions as a distinct mechanism underlying the design of contract duration, especially in terms of mitigating risks and transaction costs. Finally, by situating our study in China, we extend the research context beyond industrialized market societies to a transitional economy where interfirm contracts are an emerging economic institution. The empirical study is based on the analyses of information on 877 contracts from 620 firms collected in two Chinese cities, Beijing and Guangzhou, in 2000.

This study aims to investigate how various aspects of intraorganizational career advancement – current career attainments, recent pace of upward mobility, and future prospect of career advancement – affect voluntary turnover, drawing empirical evidence from a multinational corporation (MNC) in Taiwan's cultural and labor market environment.

The empirical study was based on statistical analyses of personnel records of 303 employees in a multinational bank in Taiwan. A discrete‐time logistic model was used to analyse voluntary turnover events.

Results showed that salary increase and job status generally reduced voluntary turnover. A ceiling position on the job ladder induced turnover and also moderated the relationship between corporate title duration and turnover and that between age and turnover.

Because the empirical evidence was based on data collected from one MNC in Taiwan's distinct research context, this may limit the generalizability of some findings in the study.

Whereas much of the literature on turnover has focused on psychological models, this study adopts an objective career perspective and highlights the significance of intraorganizational career advancement in affecting voluntary turnover. It also deepens one's understanding of career development and choices in a Chinese cultural environment.

This chapter comments on organizational learning research produced by scholars who studied or taught at Stanford University during the last third of the 20th century. Challenging classical learning models, Stanford scholars have demonstrated how cognitive and social processes attenuate connections between environmental action and the lessons learned from it. They have demonstrated how goals change over time as a partial function of prior performance and the importance of temporal processes in learning rates. They have shown how rules and routines encode only imperfectly lessons learned from organizational action. Their research has deepened and enriched our understanding of organizational learning.

The paper debunks Peter P. Li’s assertion that Yin-Yang is superior to any other cognitive frames or logical systems for paradox research. The purpose of this paper is to alert the Chinese indigenous management researchers to the danger of Chinese exceptionalism and over-confidence.

To show that Peter P. Li’s assertion is doubtful, the authors identify the flaws in his analysis.

The authors find that there are three serious flaws in Peter P. Li’s analysis. First, there are four defects in the typology of cognitive frames he built in order to compare Yin-Yang with the others. Second, his understanding of dialectics in general and Hegelian dialectics in particular is flawed. And finally, without resorting to Yin-Yang, many scholars can develop theories that are equivalent to those derived from Yin-Yang.

Due to the page limit, this paper only focuses on arguing that Yin-Yang is not superior to other cognitive frames or logical systems without going one step further to explain in which situations Yin-Yang are valuable and might be more suitable than others for helping us understand some research issues.

This paper implies that we should not blindly believe that the Chinese way of thinking and acting is superior to other people’s. Chinese people should be open-minded in the globalized era, not only promoting their own culture but also appreciating and learning from other cultures.

The reduction of cultural exceptionalism and ethnocentrism can make cross-cultural communication and interaction smoother.

This paper is a rigorous critique on the “Yin-Yang being superior” assertion of Peter P. Li.

Thirty years of rapid development and economic change have created organizations and work relations in China that would have been unthinkable at the start of transition. In December of 1978, the Chinese Communist Party agreed with Deng Xiaoping to allow agricultural privatization, a stark contrast to the communes of Mao Zedong's era. This change established the financial foundation that would lead to development in eastern, coastal cities and that would ultimately fuel an extraordinary transformation of China's economy and its global position. As a result, organizational structures have changed, and new organizational forms have emerged. There have also been dramatic changes in the way work organizations behave and in the nature and implications of work. This volume provides a glimpse into the state of organizations and work at the 30-year mark. The contributors are top scholars in the field, including many who have observed and studied China's transition for decades, who are drawing on some of the most up-to-date and innovative data sources available. The chapters are samples of the current work of these researchers that, taken together, provide a snapshot of the state of research on China's organizations and work behaviors as transition enters its fourth decade.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how to facilitate newcomers’ career advancement within an organization and diminish their intention to quit from the perspective of socialization. In addition, the moderating role of the type of newcomers on the relationship between socialization tactics and career advancement, and consequently, on the mediating effect of newcomers’ proactive socialization behavior, will be examined.

Longitudinal survey research was conducted in the tertiary industry in four large cities of China. Regression analysis and bootstrapping method were used to verify the hypothesized relationships.

Organizational socialization tactics could have positive effects on newcomers’ proactive socialization behavior and promotion prospects. And newcomers’ proactive socialization behavior partly mediates the relationship between organizational socialization tactics and their promotion prospects. The type of newcomers moderates the relationship between proactive socialization behavior and promotion prospects and also the mediation effect of proactive behavior, which says a moderated mediating effect.

Employers should put more value on college recruitment, making good use of social media tools in particular. And they should also select applicants with proactive personality traits. Finally, a series of structured orientation programs should be implemented for all newcomers.

This study contributes evidence for career advancement as one of the distal socialization outcomes, the moderating role of the type of newcomers on the relationship between socialization and career advancement, and the classification as graduates from school and experienced newcomers from other organizations holds significance to examine newcomers’ socialization.

We argue that claims of an entrepreneurial miracle as a description of private sector development in post-communist Europe conflates entrepreneurship with self-employment. The difference between the two hinges on the Weberian distinction between enterprise- and household-centered businesses. We then present two paradigms, the entrepreneurial that emphasizes the first and the post-Fordist that stresses the importance of the second business type, and provide data on businesses and individual motivation of business owners. We find more support for the post-Fordist approach. Then we show that business forms, primarily associated with self-employment have different recruitment patterns and rewards than other, more entrepreneurial forms. We end with a plea to disaggregate the various forms of independent, private sector activity in future research.