Asia Pacific Journal of Management最新文献

Nowadays, work teams are confronted with increasingly uncertain environments. The question, however, remains how teams can effectively navigate this uncertainty and thrive. Drawing upon social information processing theory, we propose that paradoxical leadership serves as a salient source of social information to enhance team decision comprehensiveness and ultimately, foster team adaptivity. We further posit that task uncertainty amplifies the effect of paradoxical leadership on team decision comprehensiveness and the indirect effect on team adaptivity. To test these hypotheses, we conducted two multi-wave and multisource field studies. The results supported all hypotheses. These findings offer important implications for both leadership literature and management practice.

Mindfulness-based training programs have been found to provide numerous benefits, such as reducing stress, improving productivity, and enhancing interpersonal relationships. However, how these effects occur remains unclear. By referring to the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program, one of the most widely used mindfulness training programs, we posit that an MBSR program consists of an essential attention training component and an additional nurturing component. The attention training component involves monitoring one’s breathing or focusing on the present, while the nurturing component of MBSR has two elements that enhance emotion regulation and other orientation, respectively. Furthermore, we posit that self-concept clarity explains the effects of MBSR training on emotion regulation and other orientations. We conducted two studies to test our theorization. Study 1 was an eight-week mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) program for university students, and Study 2 was a time-lagged survey of full-time employees with meditation experience. The results of both studies showed that the attention training component can enhance self-concept clarity, which further influences training outcomes—moreover, the training outcomes aligned with the second part of the mindfulness training program. We also found that self-concept clarity was a crucial mediating mechanism that explains the effects of mindfulness training.

Drawing from the social capital theory, we theorize the importance of the information provisioning role of the top management team’s (TMT’s) social capital, commonly called guanxi, in the speed of due diligence in technology acquisitions. We argue that social capital derived through the TMT’s interpersonal ties brings the advantages of trust, reliability, and speed of information, which can potentially expedite the task of evaluating target technology firms. In addition, we take the contingency view of social capital theory to build the case that contextual factors, including TMT tenure and equity control, can limit the efficacy of TMT social capital. We contribute to the literature by focusing on TMT’s social capital, which is constitutive in entrepreneurial actions such as technology mergers and acquisitions. Using data from 616 Chinese technology acquisitions during 2006–2015, we find empirical support for our hypotheses.

Work‒life balance is becoming increasingly important to employees in contemporary society, who face demands from the different roles that they play in life. Drawing on social contagion theory, this paper investigates how employees’ work‒life balance can be improved by examining relational perspectives of leadership and human energy. The findings from a three-wave survey of 431 employees demonstrate that relational leadership exerts a positive effect on employees’ work‒life balance through employees’ relational energy. Core self-evaluation strengthens the mediating effect of relational energy on the relationship between relational leadership and work‒life balance such that this mediating effect is stronger at high level of core self-evaluation. This paper offers both theoretical contributions by confirming the novel energizing pathway associated with employees’ work‒life balance and the corresponding boundary condition (i.e., employees’ core self-evaluation) and managerial implications pertaining to how employees’ work‒life balance can be enhanced through managers’ leadership practices.

Cynicism is increasingly prevalent in modern workplaces, posing significant challenges to organizational effectiveness. However, limited research has examined organizational cynicism among newcomers. Drawing on psychological contract theory, this study identifies perceived overqualification as a key factor leading to newcomers' organizational cynicism. We also explore the harmful effects of cynicism and how trait gratefulness can mitigate these effects. Using a scenario-based experiment and a three-wave field survey, results show that overqualified newcomers are more likely to experience psychological contract breach (PCB), resulting in greater cynicism and a higher likelihood of counterproductive work behaviors (CWB). Importantly, gratefulness buffers the relationship between cynicism and CWB. This study enhances understanding of how organizational cynicism forms early among newcomers and provides practical insights for managing its impact.

We are entering an era filled with disruptive events, yet current research in strategy and international business has paid insufficient attention to the nature of these events and their far-reaching impacts. To address this gap, we introduce event system theory (EST) into these fields, offering a critical lens to analyze the complexity of disruptive events. EST provides a comprehensive framework to explore how events unfold and impact firms across various dimensions, moving beyond traditional place-centric views that focus primarily on geographic proximity. A key contribution of this perspective paper is the development of the event space perspective, a novel extension of EST that captures the relational, symbolic, and sociopolitical channels through which disruptive events influence organizations. This new perspective encourages a more dynamic and nuanced understanding of how events shape firm strategy and performance. Finally, we draw on both EST and the event space perspective to offer promising research directions on disruptive events for strategy and international business, laying a foundation for future studies to explore organizational resilience, strategic adaptation, and the management of uncertainty in an increasingly volatile global environment.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives are increasingly viewed as tools that benefit society and as essential drivers of employee behaviors. However, little is known about why firm CSR practices relate to employee behaviors in their non-work lives (i.e., work-to-family positive spillover) and those directed towards their coworkers (i.e., organizational citizenship behaviors or OCB). We conducted a multi-wave, multi-source study in 48 organizations to shed light on this cross-level trickle-down effect. Aligned with social learning theory, the results revealed that firm-level internal and external CSR practices were positively related to employee OCB toward coworkers and work-to-family positive spillover via family-supportive supervisor behaviors (FSSB). This study contributes to the work-family literature given by construing firm activities as the “source” in a trickle-down sequence and by moving firm-level correlates of FSSB beyond work-family supportive policies and practices.

According to the behavioral theory of the firm (BTOF), companies with underperformance feedback will initiate problemistic search. However, most previous studies have ignored an important factor, the duration that a firm underperforms. Drawing on BTOF literature, we distinguish two types of underperformance feedback, underperformance intensity and underperformance duration, and examine their effects on CER strategy. Based on a sample of Chinese listed companies, we find a positive relationship between underperformance intensity and CER, but a negative relationship between underperformance duration and CER. We also find that the relationship between underperformance feedback and CER is moderated by formal institution (reflected in the level of environmental regulation) and informal institution (reflected in political connections). Further, we explore the joint moderating effect of formal institution and informal institution to better understand co-evolution of strategy, institutions, and environments in emerging economies.

In Confucian guanxi culture, the workplace often witnesses instances where one party leverages intimate guanxi to obtain resources for another party. Despite scholarly attention to guanxi-based resource allocation, there remains a lack of research exploring the dynamic process model through a stakeholder segmentation framework. Moreover, existing literature primarily relies on Western theoretical paradigms, resulting in a scarcity of theories concerning guanxi-based resource allocation congruent with the Eastern context. To address these gaps, our study is deeply rooted in the Chinese context, focusing on two pivotal issues: identifying key stakeholders and developing a dynamic process model. We categorize stakeholders into four distinct groups—benefactors, beneficiaries, victims, and bystanders—and constructs a nuanced three-stage dynamic process encompassing resource exchange, resource feedback, and resource balance. Ultimately, our research formulates a theoretical model of resource flow based on guanxi and contributes to the consolidation of the micro-foundation framework for guanxi-based resource allocation research. It elucidates the rationality and inevitability of guanxi-based resource allocation in China, offering potential guidance for managers on effectively balancing guanxi stakeholders.