Asia Pacific Journal of Management最新文献

Entrepreneurial alertness is a psychological aptitude generally associated with aspects of nascent venturing, centered on individuals’ environmental observations, the association of resources, and idea evaluation. A decade following the Tang et al. (2012) consensus construct and scale, critiques remain questioning its utility and unique value to the major conversations in entrepreneurship. Proponents put great emphasis on entrepreneurial alertness’s proven association with opportunity recognition and entrepreneurial actions. Yet, critics suggest it might be an unnecessary step offering little more than a positive association with opportunity recognition in a highly generalized and static way. The purpose of this paper is to address this tension. We do so through a ‘steel man’ approach to these valid concerns. Further, we question the logic of limiting a cognitive construct to a singular event: ‘opportunity recognition’ for a new venture (which we term here, the “Big O”). Drawing on a comprehensive framework inclusive of the full entrepreneurship phenomenon, and integrating insights from cross-cultural psychology, we put forth the case for an ongoing culturally contextualized process perspective towards venturing where individuals are alert to and pursue opportunities (and cope with threats) continuously. This paper provides a new framework for delineating a theoretically grounded “what” and “when” of entrepreneurial alertness.

Although prior research has documented a divergent relationship between leader Machiavellianism and abusive supervision, it fails to uncover the underlying mechanisms of this relationship. Drawing from trait activation theory as the overarching theory, we develop and test a dual-path model to examine how and when leader Machiavellianism leads to abusive supervision. Specifically, we theorize leader perceived threat to hierarchy (power-threatening process) and perceived power dependence on subordinations (power-sustaining process) as two parallel mechanisms through which leader Machiavellianism affects abusive supervision. We further identify leader position power as a boundary factor that influences the power-threatening and power-sustaining processes. Using multi-wave, multi-source data collected from 175 supervisors and their 763 subordinates, we found that Machiavellian leaders were more likely to perceive high threats from subordinates to the existing hierarchy, though this threat perception was not significantly associated with abusive supervision. Additionally, Machiavellian leaders were also more likely to perceive high power dependence on subordinates, which in turn reduced their abusive supervision. We further found that leader position power strengthened the positive effect of leader Machiavellianism on leader perceived threat to hierarchy, but did not weaken the positive effect of leader Machiavellianism on leader perceived power dependence on subordinates. The implications of our findings are discussed.

This paper examines how principal–principal conflict influences chief executive officer (CEO) compensation in an emerging economy. To reduce the negative influence of blockholder rent appropriation (BRA) on firms, a controlling blockholder (hereafter, the blockholder) with strong power might exploit a CEO, the primary agent of a firm, leading to possible principal–agent (PA) conflict. In this case, such PA conflict can be negatively reflected in the CEO’s compensation contract. Drawing on the social theory of agency, we suggest that the cognitive frameworks and power relations of the blockholder and the CEO influence CEO compensation design. The cognitive framework explains that an optimal compensation design is affected by the social norm of CEO compensation and a CEO’s personal value system in an emerging market. Power relations indicate how blockholders may exercise their power for the optimal stringent CEO compensation design depending on their interdependent relationship with a CEO. Based on the two underlying mechanisms, we examine how BRA influences the compensation of the three types of CEOs who have different cognitive values and power relations with the blockholder, including a blockholder as the CEO, a blockholder-affiliated CEO, and a professional CEO. By analyzing 3,621 listed Chinese firms from 2006 to 2021, we find that BRA negatively affects the compensation of a blockholder CEO and a professional CEO, and has a negligible effect on that of an affiliated CEO. We further find that the negative effect of BRA on compensation is stronger for professional CEOs at state-controlled firms than those at private firms.

As third-party ratings of firms’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) have proliferated, so have concerns about the lack of convergence (divergence) in CSR ratings of the same firms. This study investigates contributing factors to divergence in the CSR ratings issued by RKS and Hexun, the two dominant third-party CSR rating agencies in China, and the implications of such divergence. Using a longitudinal sample of 1414 CSR reports published by 387 Chinese public firms during the 2010–2015 period, we investigated whether CSR rating outcomes are influenced by CSR report information cues (report comprehensiveness and report content modifications) and non-CSR information (firms’ media coverage, auditing credibility, market risk, and industry complexity). CSR report comprehensiveness is associated with higher RKS and Hexun CSR ratings, however, media coverage and auditing credibility strengthens this relationship for RKS ratings. CSR report content modification resulted in higher RKS ratings only for firms with low market risk and in high complexity industries, while CSR report content modification resulted in higher Hexun ratings for firms in low complexity industries. Surprisingly, we found greater divergence in RKS and Hexun CSR ratings is associated with increased accuracy of analysts’ forecasts of firms’ future financial performance in China. We discuss the implications of study findings for the use of CSR ratings by analysts, investors and researchers, as well as firms’ strategic management of CSR reporting.

Despite the well identified personality-related factors that drive ostracism, the dual role that a proactive personality plays in influencing ostracism has received little scholarly attention. Drawing on social exchange and social comparison theories, we develop a social relational model of peers’ reactions to a focal proactive member. Findings reveal that a focal member’s proactive personality not only enhances peers’ cognition-based trust in the focal person, but also triggers peers’ feeling of relative deprivation. The peers’ cognition-based trust, in turn, weakens—whereas the feeling of relative deprivation strengthens—peers’ ostracism of the focal proactive member. The focal member’s prosocial motive and proself motive further moderate these relationships. Specifically, prosocial motive strengthens the negative indirect relationship between a focal person’s proactive personality and peers’ ostracism through peers’ cognition-based trust in the focal person. Moreover, proself motive amplifies the positive indirect relationship between a focal person’s proactive personality and peers’ ostracism through peers’ feeling of relative deprivation.

In this study, we examine the severe adverse consequences of the top executives’ birth order by exploring how it can adversely influence their firms’ behavior. Drawing on sibling rivalry theory, we posit that board chair birth order is positively related to corporate misconduct, such that firms headed by laterborn chairs have a higher likelihood of misconduct than those headed by earlyborn chairs. This association is weaker when the board chair is a female but stronger when family socioeconomic status is low. We find support for our predictions using a sample of Chinese listed family firms from 2003 to 2020. Our findings provide new insights by elaborating how birth order explains top executives’ misbehavior.

Drawing on the proactive motivation model, this study aims to investigate how entrepreneurial leadership at the organizational level influences employees’ taking charge at the individual level, as mediated by thriving at work and moderated by employees’ autonomy orientation. Through a two-wave questionnaire survey of 356 employees from high-tech enterprises in China, this study uses multilevel structural equation modeling to test the proposed hypotheses. The results show that organizational entrepreneurial leadership has a positive impact on individual employee taking charge and thriving at work partially mediates this relationship across levels. Additionally, employees’ autonomy orientation positively moderates not only the effect of thriving at work on employees’ taking charge but also the mediation of thriving at work in the aforementioned relationship. This study advances knowledge about entrepreneurial leadership stimulating employees’ intrinsic motivation to drive their taking charge. The psychological perspective and cross-level process deepen the research on entrepreneurial leadership effectiveness and employees’ proactive behavior, and further provide empirical evidence for executives to prompt employees to take charge.

What are the nuanced relationships among the dimensions of individual entrepreneurial orientation (Individual EO) and the factors of entrepreneurial alertness (EA)? We theorize that individual EO as a dispositional belief-based construct (i.e., what entrepreneurs believe) precedes EA as a cognition-oriented construct (i.e., how entrepreneurs think). Following this theorization, this research develops several propositions among the individual EO-EA dimensions. We also provide contingencies as possible theoretical boundaries that may alter these associations. Consequently, we enrich the EO-EA literature by articulating the detailed relationships of individual EO dimensions and EA factors, providing opportunities for future empirical studies.