Wary Managers: Unfavorable Environments, Perceived Vulnerability, and the Development of Trust in Foreign Enterprises in China

Vulnerability is salient among international managers, who tend to be wary when operating in transition economies like China. Systematic research is lacking, though, on how the local environment influences foreign managers’ perception of vulnerability, and how foreign managers can develop trust even when their perceived vulnerability is high. We conducted in-depth case studies of two foreign-controlled enterprises in China, and developed a theoretical model that links perceptions of the macro-level environment to micro-level management. Our results illustrate the antecedents and consequences of perceived vulnerability and the processes of trust building in unfavorable environments. Through comparative analysis of the two cases, we found that the foreign managers’ perceived vulnerability was shaped by the institutional, technological, and market conditions of the local environment, and we learned how this perceived vulnerability influenced their trust in the local workforce and the joint investment in formal and social control they used in building trust. The effect of perceived vulnerability on trust was moderated over time when the implementation of control was combined with active investments in trust, which led to behavioral changes on the part of the local employees, which in turn increased their trustworthiness. The implications of these findings are discussed

Corporate boards and the performance of Asian firms: A meta-analysis

The prevalence of ownership concentration in Asian firms presents a challenge to the influential agency theory-based understanding of the role of corporate boards. In this paper we develop and test hypotheses about board attributes and firm performance that reflect Asian institutional conditions. We present the first meta-analysis of the relationship between board attributes and performance of Asian firms using a varied set of meta-analytical techniques on a database of 86 studies covering nine Asian countries. First, we find that board structure and composition preferences are influenced by the identity of the concentrated owner. Second, consistent with US data, we find very limited evidence of a direct relationship between board attributes and firm financial performance in the Asian context. Third, we find that the relationship between board structure and composition and firm performance is mediated by the revealed strategic preferences of Asian firms specifically by the level of R&D investment

Commercializing biomedical science in a rapidly changing “triple-helix” nexus: The experience of the National University of Singapore

Since the late 1990s, the Singapore government had embarked on a significant push to develop the city-state into a major life-science R&D and industrial cluster in Asia. Although a major focus of this new thrust involves attracting leading life science companies overseas to establish operations in Singapore and developing new public life science research institutions to attract overseas life science research talents (Finegold, Wong, and Cheah ( 2004 )), the local universities are expected to play an important role as well. In particular, the National University of Singapore (NUS), the leading university in Singapore, has also started to pursue major strategic change to become more “entrepreneurial”, and identified life science as a major focus for technology commercialization as well. Adapting the “Triple-Helix” framework of Etzkowitz, Webster, Gebhardt, & Terra ( 2000 ), this paper examines the significant changes in the university-government-industry “Triple-Helix” nexus for life science in Singapore, and their consequent impact on life science commercialization at NUS. Implications for universities in other late-comer countries seeking to catch up in the global biotech race are discussed. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2007University technology commercialization, Innovation policy, Life science, Singapore, O31, O32, O53,