In this essay, the authors discuss the neglected state of organizational-level turnover research in the Chinese context. They provide a brief overview of the importance of turnover research in the organizational sciences, highlight the role of performance-related turnover rates research, and outline general theories and findings that appear in the Western and English-language literature. This evidence is compared with a dearth of studies using samples of Chinese organizations and in Chinese-language journals. They conclude by calling for additional theory and empirical studies on turnover rates.

Face in China is a well-known word but still lacks a precise and authoritative definition. Other than the counterpart connotation of social norms in western culture, Chinese face is also a cultural construct strongly connected with situational context. In order to explore the general context and the specific connotation of Chinese face, this paper focuses on comparing the difference between Reflective Models and Formative Models when measuring the construct of Chinese face. We find that RM is more reliable and stable than FM in terms of face measurement, but is inferior to FM in explaining the connotations of Chinese face. Moreover, we also explore the effects of different dimensions of Chinese face on consumer preference for ecological products. This study not only enriches the existing research on Chinese face, but also exploratively answers a controversial problem in this area. Furthermore, the findings in this study also provide theoretical support for building an environmentally-friendly society in China.

As the Chinese economy moves toward a market-based model, employees are likely to face more emotional demands and exhaustion at work. However, there are some unique aspects to the emotional demands of work in the Chinese cultural context. We investigate emotional demands and exhaustion in China with a large-scale sample across the six major occupations identified by the Holland classification system. Results show that incumbents of social and enterprising jobs face higher emotional demands. Unexpectedly, exhaustion differs significantly between conventional and other types of jobs. Building on the Job Demand-Resources (JD-R) model, job crafting and the cultural context, we propose that the nonlinear relationship of emotional demands and exhaustion exists only when emotional intelligence is low. Our study may inform practitioners and policy makers in Chinese enterprises about emotional demands and exhaustion for various occupations and the importance of selection and training programs in emotional intelligence.

Digital innovation is becoming increasingly important in today’s economy. Many digital innovations are developed not within organizations, but in innovation-driven entrepreneurial ecosystems, where various entrepreneurship related stakeholders collaborate and cooperate. Despite its significance, studies on digital entrepreneurship ecosystems (DEEs) are limited and the concept is largely undertheorized. This study intends to fill that gap by studying how a DEE organizes. This organizing issue is challenging, because stakeholders of a DEE are self-organizing and are not governed by any formal authority. To answer that question, we adopt forms of organizing as a theoretical lens, which provides structure to examine organizing issues. Through an in-depth case study of Zhongguancun, the Silicon Valley of China, we unveil eight processes around the themes of division of labor and integration of efforts. We further show that the forms of organizing feature a balance of centralized design and de-centralized emergence. This balanced view extends the forms of organizing literature, which takes an either/or perspective. Ecosystem architects and policy makers who intend to build entrepreneurship ecosystems to promote local economies can derive practical implications from our findings.

This paper examines the effects of ownership types on firms’ R&D intensity and innovation performance, using a sample of 357,857 Chinese firms from 2005–2007. This study finds considerable divergence among Chinese domestic enterprises in terms of R&D intensity and innovation performance. Firms owned by the central government are the key drivers for firms’ R&D activities, while local government, private and foreign ownerships are negatively related to both R&D intensity and innovation performance. Significant divergence within government ownership category and argues that China’s institutional changes generate varied government ownership groups with different levels of resource endowment, which in turn influence firms’ R&D activities.

Innovation is the engine of development for enterprises, and there is an increasing trend to adopt an open innovation strategy. However, how to manage external resources in an open, collaborative and complementary manner, and in a shared environment that will yield the greatest networking effects, it is a challenging task. Because there is no such a satisfactory model for an open innovation strategy that combine operational mechanisms with the management of external resources. This article tries to fill the gap by adopting a resource-based perspective to construct an overall open innovation (OOI) business model. In this model, external resources are classified as industrial and non-industrial entities, to enable the identification of the interaction methods between manufacturing enterprises and external resources. The management of external resources involved in a Technology Open Innovation (TOI) cycle is given particular attention that includes: 1) the classification of the external resources of a TOI, 2) the general mechanisms extracted to promote qualified resources in and unqualified resources out, and 3) a business model to conceptualize the collaboration between enterprises and external resources. A case study of TOI is also provided to empirically verify its feasibility. This paper contributes to the literature by providing an original operational model and mechanism design for an open innovation strategy that is capable of managing external resources effectively.