Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory procedures and techniques

Ordinary Magic: Resilience Processes in Development

Much effort goes into building markets as a tool for economic and social development, often overlooking that in too many places social exclusion and poverty prevent many, especially women, from participating in and accessing markets. Building on data from rural Bangladesh and analyzing the work of a prominent intermediary organization, we uncover institutional voids as the source of market exclusion and identify two sets of activities – redefining market architecture and legitimating new actors – as critical for building ‘inclusive' markets. We expose voids as ‘analytical spaces' and illustrate how they result from conflict and contradiction among institutional ‘bits and pieces' from local political, community, and religious spheres. Our findings put forward a perspective on market building that highlights the ‘on the ground' dynamics and attends to the ‘institutions at play', to their consequences, and to a more diverse set of ‘inhabitants' of institutions.

Building Inclusive Markets in Rural Bangladesh : How Intermediaries Work Institutional Voids

Qualitative Research Interviewing

Who is in charge? A review and a research agenda on the ‘human side’ of the circular economy

https://research.birmingham.ac.uk/portal/files/30319013/Upload_Managing_African_Employees_of_Chinese_Firms_in_Africa.pdf

Intercultural influences on managing African employees of Chinese firms in Africa:Chinese managers’ HRM practices

Due to the intertwined nature of private and public interests, local governments tend to use collaborative partnerships involving entrepreneurs to promote regional entrepreneurship. However, there is still a gap in the theory with regard to the mechanisms underpinning these collaborative partnerships. Drawing on institutional entrepreneurship literature, we identify the enabling conditions and articulate the role played by local government as an institutional entrepreneur in fostering regional entrepreneurship through entrepreneurial public-private collaborative partnerships. This paper explicates two distinct mechanisms—the establishment of new institutional arrangements by the institutional entrepreneur, and the advocation of diffusion by other actors—that underpin entrepreneurial public-private collaborative partnerships. Importantly, we underscore the crucial role played by returnee entrepreneurs who interact collaboratively with the institutional entrepreneur in affecting institutional change and fostering regional entrepreneurship. We conduct in-depth qualitative interviews with local government officials, entrepreneurs, and high-tech park managers, in conjunction with performing content analysis of policy documents in a peripheral region of China—areas that have been largely neglected in scholarly research. This paper concludes with some theoretical and policy implications for public management and entrepreneurship.

/pdf/local-government-as-institutional-entrepreneur-public-5dx3l91753.pdf

Local Government as Institutional Entrepreneur: Public–Private Collaborative Partnerships in Fostering Regional Entrepreneurship

Previous studies of Chinese leadership have identified Daoism as the main philosophical tradition that makes Chinese leadership behaviour different from western leadership behaviour in terms of its modesty, harmony and submissiveness to authority. However, less attention has been paid to Chinese managers’ own perceptions and representations of traditional thinking in Daoist Wu Wei. In this article, we offer a new, more nuanced understanding of Daoist Wu Wei. We critically explored the link between Wu Wei and self-reflexivity. As a result, this study offers a new understanding of the influence of Daoism on leadership by showing that our participants exhibited three different forms of reflexivity in their ways of believing in Wu Wei, namely: flow, self-protection and an excuse for failing.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1350507611409659

Leadership, Daoist Wu Wei and reflexivity: Flow, self-protection and excuse in Chinese bank managers’ leadership practice

https://bura.brunel.ac.uk/bitstream/2438/21129/2/FullText.pdf

Entrepreneurial team and strategic agility: A conceptual framework and research agenda

Summary
Existing research shows that leadership behaviours can influence the proenvironment beliefs of employees and their green behaviours. However, the mechanisms that nurture the proenvironment attitudes of employees remain unclear. By juxtaposing Taoist philosophy and Aldo Leopold's land ethic, this paper explores how the former can theoretically advance the latter from a cultural and philosophical microfoundational perspective. Taoism, which treats human beings and the natural environment as components of an integral oneness, has important implications for both Taoist leadership behaviours and the management of sustainability. We posit that the attributions of Taoist leadership—rejection of domination, reverse thinking, and selflessness—can nurture employee proenvironment attitudes. Using the narratives of Chinese leaders and employees, our research empirically shows that the proenvironment attitudes and green behaviours of employees can be nurtured through Taoist leadership. Our paper contributes the field of sustainability management by suggesting Taoism as a cultural and philosophical microfoundation for sustainability.

/pdf/taoist-leadership-and-employee-green-behaviour-a-cultural-2ret3wlxvo.pdf

Yijun Xing

Papers

Intercultural influences on managing African employees of Chinese firms in Africa:Chinese managers’ HRM practices

Local Government as Institutional Entrepreneur: Public–Private Collaborative Partnerships in Fostering Regional Entrepreneurship

Leadership, Daoist Wu Wei and reflexivity: Flow, self-protection and excuse in Chinese bank managers’ leadership practice

Entrepreneurial team and strategic agility: A conceptual framework and research agenda

Taoist leadership and employee green behaviour: A cultural and philosophical microfoundation of sustainability