Have you ever wondered why it takes at least 3–5 years to get a paper published in management journals, whereas in other applied disciplines, such as health science or engineering, the publishing cycle is significantly shorter? If you have, the opening paper (Zhang & Chen, 2024) in the ‘Dialogue, Debate, and Discussion’ section of this issue directly addresses this question. The authors ventured into mental health research during the COVID-19 pandemic and experienced firsthand how health and medical sciences have vastly different publishing expectations and norms from those in management, while still upholding scientific standing and addressing real-world problems. I encourage you to actively participate in the discussion and dialogue with the two authors of the paper and general MOR readers by submitting your commentaries to MOR, in order to foster diverse evaluation criteria and a variety of scholarship in management journals.
Beyond the exciting opening paper, this issue has a nice collection of research articles that explore Chinese multinational enterprises' (MNEs) investment or operation in overseas emerging markets and their influences there. For example, Wu, Fan, and Soo (2024) explored the first cross-border acquisition of emerging market multinationals and found that rapid adoption of a focused strategy increases their expansion frequency, while the adoption of a conglomerate strategy decreases it. Interestingly, they also found that high comparative nationalism attenuated these relationships. When exploring how the shifting geopolitical landscape from Western to Chinese sources of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) shaped the nature and evolution of labor market policies in an African country, Cameroon, Nyiawung, Geary, and Piabuo (2024) found that an entrenched parochial and crony Cameroonian institutional context was at the mercy of transnational forces playing a pivotal role, rather than coherent national socio-economic policy options, in shaping labor market institutions in the country. Furthermore, Chen, Ghorbani, and Xie (2024) investigated different motives behind FDI by Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and privately owned enterprises (POEs). Using data from multiple sources on 3,760 Chinese FDI projects in Africa between 2001 and 2015, the authors discovered that SOE FDI primarily followed political imperatives, whereas POE FDI pursued market motives, as predicted by institution theory. Finally, Zhao, Zhu, He, and Tong (2024) examined corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure as a strategic response of Chinese MNEs to the social risk they face in host countries in China's Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) where they are protected from political risk. They found that Chinese MNEs investing in BRI countries significantly increase their likelihood of CSR disclosure when compared to their counterparts investing in non-BRI countries, and that such effects are more pronounced for state-owned MNEs and MNEs in natural resource industries.
The last three articles focus on firm and individual behaviors within the Chinese context and reveal provocative findings. Zhong, Huang, and Ren (2024) predict that local gambling cultures can promote active enterprise involvement in bribery activities because such cultures reinforce the speculative psychology of male enterprise decision-makers and find support from 11 years of empirical data obtained from privately listed Chinese companies (including 2,637 listed companies with 15,036 firm-year data points). Chen, Wang, and Zhang (2024) articulate and demonstrate the importance of institutional knowledge and information embedded in CEO cross-sector work experience because it enables CEOs to better identify potential risks associated with public–private partnerships, which makes them more cautious in participating in such partnerships, especially in developing economies like China, where private actors face greater information incompleteness concerning post-collaboration hazards due to the government's selective disclosure.
This issue ends on a more positive note, which is reflected in the article on employee voice by Zheng, Williams, Wang, and Liang (2024), who find that achievement-driven employees are more likely to speak up when employee–supervisor achievement striving is congruent, regardless of whether it is high or low. Furthermore, employee–supervisor congruence in achievement striving enhances employees' felt oneness with the organization and organizational identification, which, in turn, fuels their voice behavior.
I truly hope that you will be inspired by some of the findings in this issue!
