Despite the multitude of research on charisma of leaders, researchers have failed to reach a consensus on its nature. The main debate is whether charisma resides innately within a leader or it is developed from specific relationships. This paper elucidates this issue using empirical studies from China. Combining qualitative investigations and exploratory factor analysis, we find that leader charisma consists of three dimensions: love towards followers, talents and wisdom of leadership, and public virtue. The three-factor structure of charisma suggests that a leader’s charisma on the surface originates from leader’s personality and behavior but it can actually only be fully understood by integrating the relationship-centered view of charisma.

Transformational leadership, though widely studied in the literature, lacks sufficient contextual analysis of its essential leadership process and differences in characteristic behaviors under different cultural settings, especially in the Asian context. This research, through qualitative data collected from eight Chinese organizations (four state-owned enterprises and four private-owned enterprises), empirically examines the Western transformational leadership theory in China. Moreover, by studying Chinese leaders’ daily behaviors, we develop a transformational leadership theory in the Chinese business context. This research contributes to contextualizing transformational leadership behaviors and providing deep insights into the Chinese transformational leadership process from a philosophical perspective. Findings can be applied to both Chinese and Western management studies as well as the World of business practice.

Based on resource and relational theories, this study examined the relationships among organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), exchanged resources, and career growth opportunities, along with the moderating effect of member-member exchange (MMX). Findings from a field survey of 192 supervisor-subordinate dyads revealed that status resource was positively related to OCB and career growth opportunities. MMX moderated the relationship between OCB and status resource in such a way that the relationship was stronger in the low MMX context than in the high MMX context. The main contribution of this study is an explanation of the effects of OCB on individual careers from a fine-grained perspective based on resource and relational theories.

Budgetary slack directly impairs a firm’s budgetary management. Budgetary slack at a firm’s business unit level makes the firm level budget like a building on sand. However, it is difficult to detect the existence and to evaluate the extent of budgetary slack at a firm’s business unit level. Starting with the five-year historical data of a service delivery center in a U.S. Fortune 500 firm, this research develops a comprehensive approach for probing and assessing the budgetary slack in a firm’s business units. The approach leverages operational efficiencies and transfer values of business units of a firm’s internal transfer system. It also contributes to evaluating the rationale of the budget of a firm’s business unit in the budgetary approval process.

This article aims to explore how top management team (TMT) process affects strategic corporate social responsibility (CSR), and in turn, how strategic CSR influences firm performance. In addition, this article examines whether CSR mediates the relationship between TMT process and firm performance. The sample consists of 203 hotels from the tourism and hospitality industry in the southeast China. TMT processes assessed are communication and cohesion. Results indicate that (1) corporate social responsibility is positively related to firm performance, (2) top management team process (communication and cohesion) is positively related to corporate social responsibility, and (3) corporate social responsibility fully mediates the relationship between top management team process and firm performance. Results highlight upper echelons mechanisms that underpin the TMT process–firm performance relationship. This study contributes to understanding how TMT process affects firm performance both directly and indirectly, through strategic CSR.

The case looks at the internationalisation of Tesco PLC, a successful UK retailing business, and in particular how and why it has gone about developing its business in Southeast/East Asia. The case is suitable for use with final year undergraduate and especially postgraduate students, in either corporate strategy or international business modules. The case follows Tesco’s moves into Thailand, South Korea, and most recently China. It is found that the methods of entry to the new markets/countries and strategies used post-entry have varied country by country, culture by culture. The strategies adopted are found not to have been universally successful, which raises questions as to why that may be. It is expected that students will be able to identify the entry methods and reasons for their use; determine the business strategies adopted country by country, explore why they may differ, and locate the influences of the varying cultures. They will be expected to assess how successful Tesco has been in these processes. Finally, they should explore the question whether the giant China market can indeed be “an ultimate prize” and if so how it should best be tackled. For the time being, South Korea is arguably the most successful part of the company’s Asian push.