Handbook of Asian Management
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Kwok Leung, Steven White (Eds.)
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Handbook of Asian Management
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Kluwer Academic Publishers
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9781402079320
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1
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CHF 158.00
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Management
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English
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544
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DRM
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PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
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PDF
Our understanding of management in Asia has not kept pace with the demands of managers and students. The Handbook of Asian Management provides in-depth critical reviews of central topics in strategy and organizational behavior research in Asian contexts. Leading scholars take stock of what has been learned and give clear directions towards greater rigor and relevance for research in this region.
Written for: MBA students, Ph.D. graduate students and researchers in international business and management and comparative or cross-cultural management.
Th Editors
Kwok Leung (Ph.D. in Psychology, University of Illinois) is Professor of management, City University of Hong Kong. His research interests include justice, conflict, and culture, and he has published widely in these areas. He is currently the Editor of Asian Journal of Social Psychology, an associate editor of Asia Pacific Journal of Management, and a departmental editor of Journal of International Business Studies. He is on the editorial board of several journals, including Journal of Applied Psychology, Applied Psychology: An International Review, and Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology.
Steven White is Assistant Professor of Asian Business and Comparative Management at INSEAD. He studies the dynamics of organizational change, interorganizational relationships, and cross-cultural management issues. His work has appeared in the Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Management Studies, Organization Studies, Research Policy and Asia Pacific Journal of Management.
Chapter 5 FIRM DIVERSIFICATION IN ASIA
(p. 129-130)
Lu Yuan Chinese University of Hong Kong
Garry Bruton Texas Christian University
Hailin Lan Southern China University of Technology
INTRODUCTION
Diversification has long constituted an important position in both firm strategic management practices and academic research (Ansoff, 1965; Argyres, 1996; Chandler, 1962; Hill, Hitt and Hoskisson, 1992; Palich, Cardinal, and Miller, 2000; Rumelt, 1974; Ramanujam and Varadarajan, 1989; Williamson, 1975). Students of economics and strategic management have developed various theories and perspectives to examine corporate activities relevant to firm diversification (Brush, 1996; Ramanujam and Varadarajan, 1989; Reed and Luffman, 1986; Rumelt, 1974). However, despite diversification being wellresearched in Western countries, the topic as an academic inquiry is relatively new in Asia, where environments and business systems have characteristics considerably different from Western society. For example, in contrast to advanced market economies in the West where governments were usually kept away from market, most Asian countries adopted an ‘other directed’ development strategy in which governments consciously controlled and promoted economic development through policy, regulations, and/or even direct administrative intervention, such as state plans (Berlinger, 1966). In addition to the distinctiveness of Asian societies vis-à-vis those of the West, there is also great variation among Asian countries themselves. Take an example of GDP per capita. In 2000 Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore entered into the top twenty GNI per capita in the world, varying between $34,210 and $24,740. At the same time, two Asian countries with the largest population in the world, the People’s Republic of China (the PRC) and India, had GNI per capita of $840 and $460. A gap exists not only between different countries but also across regions which share similar cultural inheritances. For instance, mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan were assumed to operate within Greater China Economic Zone where Chinese traditional culture dominated in social norms and values system. In 2000 GNP per capita in Taiwan and Hong Kong exceeded $14,000 and $24,000, more than 60 and 180 percent over that in mainland China. There is also variation in the economic environments within the Greater China Economic Zone. Taiwan and Hong Kong have had a relatively developed market economy and their governments were largely kept away from business operations. By contrast, in mainland China the overall economic institution is in a transition from a centrally planned economy to a market one. A major characteristic of a transition economy is that the government exerts a strong influence over both macro and micro economic activities by allocation of resources allocation and control of or even direct administrative intervention in business organizations (Chen, 1995; Redding, 1990).
These differences between Western and Asian societies, and among Asian societies, have suggested many questions to scholars studying diversification. For example, does diversification in Asia exhibit the same or similar characteristics as that in Western countries if there are distinctive differences between the two societies? Are Western theories appropriate to the study of firm diversification in Asia? Does the research of Asia’s diversification require new context-specific design for the purpose of testing the limits of Western theories and conclusions? Furthermore, given the great discrepancy across Asian countries, will such inter-societal variance within Asia cause organizational differences in terms of firm behavior?
In this chapter we review previous studies of corporate diversification in seven major Asian countries and areas, including mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and India. It begins with a brief review of Western theories of firm diversification. The second section will introduce findings from a literature survey of existing empirical studies in the seven Asian countries and areas. Building on literature survey findings, we will in the third section attempt to identify distinctive characteristics of firm diversification in Asia. The final section suggests directions for future research in this subject.
FOREWORD
7
REFERENCES
11
PREFACE
12
Part I INTRODUCTION
14
1 TAKING STOCK AND CHARTING A PATH FOR ASIAN MANAGEMENT RESEARCH
15
INTRODUCTION
15
WHAT DOES RESEARCH IN ASIA OFFER?
16
Asia as a source of problems and phenomena
17
Asia as a theory-testing ground
18
Asia as a source of constructs and theory
19
Asia as an alternative cluster of management systems
20
ISSUES FOR THE FUTURE
22
Are all Asians Alike?
22
Configurational Approaches
24
Interplay of Emic and Etic Traditions
25
Interaction Processes
27
Methodological Rigor
28
CONCLUSIONS
28
REFERENCES
29
2 ETIC AND EMIC APPROACHES TO ASIAN MANAGEMENT RESEARCH
31
EMIC AND ETIC APPROACHES
31
The Concepts
31
The Etic–Emic Divide
33
DIALECTICS BETWEEN EMIC AND ETIC APPROACHES
34
Imposed Etics
35
Etics That Aim to Explain Cultural Differences
38
Emics That Stand Out
43
Integrative Approaches
47
SUGGESTIONS FOR RESEARCH
51
PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS
53
REFERENCES
55
Part II STRATEGY
63
3 TOWARDS THE DEVELOPMENT OF STRATEGY THEORY
64
INTRODUCTION
64
Current State of Research
65
How is Strategy Different?
67
Limits of Cultural Impact
68
SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCES
71
Institutional Environment
71
The Role of Governments8
73
Rate of Change
75
Regional Diversity
77
Business Networks
79
Governance Systems
81
Explaining the Differences
82
Research Implications
84
The Way Forward
86
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
87
NOTES
87
REFERENCES
90
4 CONTEXT, CONFIGURATION AND CAPABILITY
95
THE CONCEPT OF ORGANIZATION DESIGN IN THE ASIAN CONTEXT
95
INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT AND ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN: SIX CONFIGURATIONS
97
Government Linked Enterprises (GLEs)
98
Fami
