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Existing research has ignored the perspectives of frontline managers (FLMs) in relation to the support they receive. This study aims to understand the extent to which and how other organisational actors support FLMs in their implementation of performance.

This article used a qualitative method (57 semi-structured interviews) in two Singapore public sector organisations to understand the types of support provided to FLMs. The interviewees came from various levels and the hierarchical sampling frame allowed for comparisons to be made across the cases.

The authors found that the HR department, superiors and peers signalled to FLMs the custom and practice of performance management (PM) that led to the FLMs not prioritising their PM responsibilities. Notably, the focus of the FLMs was on meeting operational needs rather than the PM process.

The authors add to the literature by examining the how the support from other organisational actors signalled to FLMs the importance of PM within their work group. This paper also explores how FLMs seek support and the type of support they want in their role.

The implementation of performance management is the responsibility of managers; more importantly, a key part of a frontline manager's role is ensuring that frontline employees are performing by meeting organisational goals. Existing research has shown a lack of focus on the role of frontline managers in the implementation of performance management systems despite plenty of research on the separate topics of frontline managers and performance management. This article aims to understand how frontline managers connect the intended performance management system, through components and processes developed by the human resources department and higher levels of management, with their employees' performance.

This study used a qualitative method, conducting semi-structured interviews with 57 participants from two Singapore public sector organisations to understand the interaction between the formal and informal performance management systems.

The authors found that frontline managers used the formal and informal performance management systems in the organisation to manage the demands of their role. Notably, the expectations that superiors and subordinates have heavily influences how the frontline managers choose to implement their performance management responsibilities.

The article uses systems theory to illustrate and explain the complex and dynamic nature of PM in practice through the FLM's implementation of the formal and informal PM systems. The primary contribution of the study is through demonstrating under what situations do frontline managers use the formal and informal performance systems in a complementary manner within the constraints placed on them.

Yi Jing is one of the most archaic works among the Chinese classics. Various schools of thought developed their philosophies from the philosophical perspectives in this book and its influence is wide ranging and far reaching. This paper attempts to show how leaders can approach the Yi Jing beneficially by identifying the principles, values and virtues in each of the 64 scenarios, deriving insights about change and leadership. It also aims to show how the Yi Jing compares with Western management literature.

This paper provides an analysis of Qian Gua of Yi Jing as an example of how leaders can draw insights from Yi Jing about change and leadership.

Qian Gua, which is the first scenario in the Yi Jing, offers us powerful insights about change and leadership by offering: a framework of understanding change and human enterprises, considering the aspects of beginning, process, benefit and sustainability; a framework to understand the leadership development process; and leadership principles of conscientious self‐cultivation, transformational leadership through virtues and riding the tides of change.

A change and leadership model inspired by the Yi Jing should interest business leaders both in the east and the west, and help Westerners gain success in doing business in China or collaborating with the Chinese on a joint venture.

This is the first paper to draw insights about change and leadership through an analysis of Qian Gua of Yi Jing.

Much of the extant evidence in the marketing literature posits that firms use strategic alliances to share resources, costs and risks as paths to performance improvements. Drawing from the organizational ecology theory, this study aims to propose a different rationale, namely, that strategic alliances protect a firm’s core structure – its stated goals, authority structure, core technologies and marketing strategies – by mitigating the need for hazardous changes in hostile environments.

This study collected quantitative data using market survey and analyzed the data with the regression method.

Using Chinese firms in three technology industries as the research setting, this research finds a positive and significant relationship between environmental hostility and core structure dynamism. Although strategic alliances themselves have no direct bearing on core structure dynamism, they are found to moderate this relationship negatively, that is, strategic alliances attenuate the relationship between environmental hostility and structural changes.

This paper argues that strategic alliances have significant moderating effects on firm performance, that is, firms use strategic alliances to outsource competence to partners and, thus, avoid internal turmoil. However, the moderating effect alone cannot explain the complexity of strategic alliances. There could exist other effects that remain unknown. In addition, individual-level factors could have significant impacts on strategic alliance management. Future studies should look into these issues to advance the authors’ knowledge on strategic alliances.

The findings of this study show that managers should outsource competence to partners when they experience turmoil in markets. Adapting to market turmoil internally could lead to market failure.

This study provides a new rationale for strategic alliances, that is, firms use strategic alliances to reduce market uncertainty. This rationale has not been reported in the existing literature.

The purpose of this paper is to theorize and empirically examine the effects of intra- and inter-regional geographic diversification on firm performance in China. Furthermore, it investigates they key firm capabilities, which moderate the relationships between intra- and inter-regional geographic diversification and firm performance.

In this research, the authors studied 366 listed companies that invest in mainland China. The authors used the Taiwan Economy Journal database to construct a panel data set from 2005 to 2014 and employed panel regression estimations as part of the empirical analyses.

The authors find that the effect of regional diversification on firm performance is significantly influenced by the contexts of the expansion. More specifically, the results show that the effect of intra-regional geographic diversification on firm performance takes the form of a U-shape relationship. In contrast, the authors find that inter-regional geographic diversification has a negative effect on firm performance. Firm marketing, research and development (R&D) and managerial capabilities moderate these relationships.

First, the companies studied in this research are mainly Taiwanese manufacturers with investments in mainland China. Second, the current model can be expanded by exploring additional process explanations and moderators in future research.

An important practical implication of this research is that when firms choose an intra-regional expansion strategy in China, they should adopt a moderate provincial diversification strategy in the invested region and reinforce its marketing capability to enhance firm performance. A careful consideration of a firm’s marketing, R&D and managerial capabilities is needed for successful regional diversification strategies in the China market.

The findings of this study contribute significantly to the existing literature on firms’ regional diversification. First, the authors explore and empirically test intra- and inter-regional geographic diversification strategies in China. The authors find that the effect of regional diversification on firm performance varies according to the contexts of the expansion (for instance, global, regional, in a single country). Second, this study furthers the research theme of intra- and inter-regional diversification by introducing and investigating previously unexplored firm capabilities as part of the framework.

Playing as a global city, to maintain the economic dynamics and urban vitality, Hong Kong government would like to take urban regeneration in urban core as a kind of urban growth strategy. The government monopolizes land supply for urban development through the leasehold system, while the redevelopment agency is authorized to take land acquisition for urban redevelopment. The transformation of agency from Land Development Corporation (LDC) to Urban Renewal Authority (URA) reflected the formation of a coalition composed of quasi-public redevelopment agency and private developer, which facilitates land and property resumption in urban redevelopment. The URA-led projects often tend to redevelop obsolete communities into up-market neighborhoods, which possibly enables redevelopment agency and developers to gain more economic benefits from real estate appreciation. Nevertheless, evidences from some large redevelopment projects conducted by URA in Hong Kong such as Lee Tung Street, Langham Palace and Kennedy Town have presented that urban redevelopment is closely associated with gentrification triggered by displacement of original neighborhood residents. Hence gentrification in Hong Kong has raised more and more concerns about booming housing price as well as fragmentation of social networks. Through urban regime combined with growth machine approach, this paper will explain the collusion of redevelopment agency and private developers that jointly turns the URA-led redevelopment into neighborhood gentrification. And by examining Kwun Tong Town Centre Project (KTTCP), findings indicate that soaring property value will crowd low-income groups and working classes out from their original neighborhoods; and then those gentrified residential estates will be occupied by rich class. Moreover, increasing rent and operation costs will inevitably eliminate those family-operated small businesses; and then they will be superseded by high-end retailing and services. In this way, urban morphology will be reshaped perpetually through more and more gentrified neighborhoods.

The chapter investigates the relationship between environmental management practices (EMPs) and financial performance (FP).

The study is based on a sample of 187 SMEs and uses data on six EMPs (energy, water, waste, material, emissions, and biodiversity) collected through a self-administered questionnaire from owner-managers of SMEs. Ordinary least squares regression is employed to model the hypothesized paths.

The results suggest a positive and significant relationship between EMPs (energy, water, and material) and FP. There is also a significant positive relationship between an aggregate EMP measure and FP. However, other EMPs (waste, emissions, and biodiversity) are not significantly associated with FP. Overall, these results provide empirical support to the mostly normative suggestion that the conflicting results on the environmental management and financial performance relationship are partly due to the EMP measure used.

The study is based on cross-sectional data, and therefore, it is impossible to determine any changes over time. Longitudinal studies could help confirm the relationship between EMP and FP over a longer period. From a policy perspective, this results mean that the Ghanaian EPA must monitor more closely for violations of laws and regulations relating to waste, emissions, and biodiversity since SMEs do not have incentives to manage these impacts without commensurate return.

The study contributes by documenting evidence of the relationship between multiple measures of EMP and FP. This unlike most existing studies has enabled us to report evidence of how each EMP measure affects FP differently and where win–win opportunities are for SMEs. Thus, the win–win opportunities are associated with some EMP measures but not all.

In this study, we analyze the general effect of acquirers’ ownership strategy on the survival in foreign acquisitions. Furthermore, we attempt to address five potential moderating effects: international, regional, target country experience, cultural distance, as well as host country development. The developed hypotheses are tested on a sample of 1,345 acquisitions made by 174 Finnish firms in 59 countries during 1980–2005. The results indicate that in general WOS increases the probability of survival of foreign acquired units. We further find that the impact of WOS on the survival of foreign acquired units is contingent upon cultural distance and host country development but not on the experience of buying firms.

This study investigates how artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots persuade customers to accept their recommendations in the online shopping context.

Drawing on the elaboration likelihood model, this study establishes a research model to reveal the antecedents and internal mechanisms of customers' adoption of AI chatbot recommendations. The authors tested the model with survey data from 530 AI chatbot users.

The results show that in the AI chatbot recommendation adoption process, central and peripheral cues significantly affected a customer's intention to adopt an AI chatbot's recommendation, and a customer's cognitive and emotional trust in the AI chatbot mediated the relationships. Moreover, a customer's mind perception of the AI chatbot, including perceived agency and perceived experience, moderated the central and peripheral paths, respectively.

This study has theoretical and practical implications for AI chatbot designers and provides management insights for practitioners to enhance a customer's intention to adopt an AI chatbot's recommendation.

1. The study investigates customers' adoption of AI chatbots' recommendation.

2. The authors develop research model based on ELM theory to reveal central and peripheral cues and paths.

3. The central and peripheral cues are generalized according to cooperative principle theory.

4. Central cues include recommendation reliability and accuracy, and peripheral cues include human-like empathy and recommendation choice.

5. Central and peripheral cues affect customers' adoption to recommendation through trust in AI.

6. Customers' mind perception positively moderates the central and peripheral paths.

The study investigates customers' adoption of AI chatbots' recommendation.

The authors develop research model based on ELM theory to reveal central and peripheral cues and paths.

The central and peripheral cues are generalized according to cooperative principle theory.

Central cues include recommendation reliability and accuracy, and peripheral cues include human-like empathy and recommendation choice.

Central and peripheral cues affect customers' adoption to recommendation through trust in AI.

Customers' mind perception positively moderates the central and peripheral paths.