Peter Li | Copenhagen Business School, CBS (original) (raw)

Papers by Peter Li

Proceedings - Academy of Management, 2015

The purpose of this symposium is twofold. First, we seek to specify the key distinctions and simi... more The purpose of this symposium is twofold. First, we seek to specify the key distinctions and similarities between the Eastern and Western approaches to paradox so as to gain special insights into t...

Management and Organization Review, 2021

On the morning of February 20, 2016, I interviewed James March ('Jim' hereafter) at a nursing hom... more On the morning of February 20, 2016, I interviewed James March ('Jim' hereafter) at a nursing home in Northern California, not far from Stanford University, where Jim and his wife were living. This is perhaps the last interview Jim had in his lifetime. In the following, I present the most interesting parts of my interview with Jim (see the Supplemental File for the transcript of my full interview). DIVERSITY-INTEGRATION BALANCING Peter: In your MOR 2005 article (March, 2005), you referred to the peripheral position of the indigenous research communities relative to the mainstream research community. Do you think the Chinese research community is like that? James: So far as possible, we would like to maintain some diversity. The ideology of research is international and sharing, but the risk is that you converge too completely and too fast. So how do you keep it from converging too rapidly and too completely? National and other communities being separate is our way to maintain diversity. It is a complicated problem because, from the point of the view of the separate community, that is not advantageous; they will be more advantageous if they converge with the dominant view; from the point of the view of the total community, there is an advantage having diversity. One of the ways to maintain that diversity in our present world situation is being national with a combination of separate cultures, separate languages, and some kind of local enthusiasm. Whether maintaining the optimum diversity is a much more complicated question, but a completely convergent is not optimum, so you need some diversity. Peter: Is this analogous to the argument that if you don't maintain exploration, then there is a tendency that the community will convert into exploitation?

Cross Cultural & Strategic Management, 2018

Purpose As the global presence of Chinese firms grows, increasing numbers of Chinese managers are... more Purpose As the global presence of Chinese firms grows, increasing numbers of Chinese managers are working abroad as expatriates. However, little attention has been paid to such Chinese expatriate managers and their leadership challenges in an inter-cultural context, especially across a large cultural distance. To fill the gap in the literature concerning the leadership challenges for expatriate managers in an inter-cultural context, the purpose of this paper is to elucidate the leadership styles of Chinese expatriate managers from the perspectives of three traditional Chinese philosophies (i.e. Confucianism, Taoism, and Legalism) in the inter-cultural context of the Netherlands. Design/methodology/approach The data for this qualitative study were collected via semi-structured, open-ended, narrative interviews with 30 Chinese expatriate managers in the Netherlands. Findings The results clearly show that the leadership style of Chinese expatriate managers is deeply rooted in the three...

Cross Cultural & Strategic Management, 2017

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how Chinese and Finnish managers in cross-cultura... more Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how Chinese and Finnish managers in cross-cultural supply-chain relationships evaluate their business partners’ trustworthiness and distrustworthiness. Design/methodology/approach Representatives of two Finnish companies and their Chinese and Finnish suppliers were interviewed to collect qualitative data from 23 managers. Findings The Chinese managers emphasized relationship-specific, personalized trustworthiness. They highlighted personalized communication and benevolence, which manifested in respect and reciprocity, rooted in the Chinese notion of “guanxi” as personal ties. In contrast, the Finnish managers’ view of trustworthiness was more associated with depersonalized organizational attributes. They emphasized the dimension of integrity, especially promise-keeping. In addition, tentative signs of trust ambivalence, as a balance between trust- and distrust-related factors, were identified for both the Chinese and the Finns. Researc...

Commonwealth Trade Hot Topics, 2017

Journal of Trust Research, 2013

International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 2015

Team heterogeneity research has been traditionally dominated by atomistic or single-culture assum... more Team heterogeneity research has been traditionally dominated by atomistic or single-culture assumptions. This study extends this stream by investigating the influences of cooperation and culture on the link between leader-member skill distance (one special type of team heterogeneity) and team performance. Building upon input-process-output framework from the perspective of individualist and collectivist cultures, we propose that the association between leader-member skill distance and team performance has an inverted-U shape in individualist cultures. Further, in such cultures, team cooperation can augment the positive effect of leader-member skill distance on team performance. In contrast, in collectivist cultures, the association between leader-member skill distance and team performance has a monotonic and positive shape, and team cooperation will attenuate the positive effect of leader-member skill distance on team performance. We find the empirical support for our views with a mixed-methods design: a qualitative study interviewing informants in different cultures to clarify the psychological mechanisms, and also a quantitative study analyzing the data from US's National Basketball Association (NBA) and China Basketball Association (CBA).

Management and Organization Review, 2009

Organization Studies, 1998

Despite its increasing importance to the research and practice of organizational management, ther... more Despite its increasing importance to the research and practice of organizational management, there is no consensus on how to describe, explain and prescribe network as an organizational form. Based upon the evidence of the Chinese network form within its institutional and cultural contexts, this paper seeks to make three contributions. First, it describes network as a unique form, different from other organizational forms and thus needing a new perspective. Second, it explains network form from a holistic, dynamic and paradoxical perspective by synthesizing economic, social and psychological rationalities. Third, it prescribes the ideal-typical network form by offering a geocentric framework of organizational form which is neither culture-blind (under-embedded) nor culture-bounded (over-embedded).

Thunderbird International Business Review, 2020

International trade and FDI, as well as other forms of cross-border economic activities, are esse... more International trade and FDI, as well as other forms of cross-border economic activities, are essential to globalization, even in the emerging era of neo-globalization as a unique balance between globalization and de-globalization. Despite the hype, globalization is a relatively new phenomenon. In the past few decades, international trade and FDI were largely

Management and Organization Review, 2019

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SME), many of which are family businesses, play a significant... more Small and medium-sized enterprises (SME), many of which are family businesses, play a significant role in China. Based on recent statistics, about 67% of firms were non-state owned and non state-owned firms contributed to 47% of the R&D in 2017 (Report of the Top 500 Firms in China, 2017). The majority of these firms are SMEs or family businesses. In the past two decades, the government has increasingly recognized these firms as a major engine of economic growth and innovation, and as a vital force for providing employment and environmental sustainability. These firms have also experienced a multitude of challenges, ranging from intense competition, digital transformation, and underprivileged access to resources (Li et al., 2015). However, they are not yet in the spotlight of research. We lack both theoretical and empirical understanding of how these firms cope with the opportunities and challenges in China's fast-changing transitional market, especially under the emerging VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity) contexts with the advances of digital technologies and market customization. The Research Frontiers Conference in Hangzhou, 2019 calls for more indigenous research on SMEs and family businesses in China. We intend to attract research that delves into the ongoing opportunities and challenges facing SMEs and family firms in China, which seeks to understand how they survive, grow, and innovate in such contexts. We encourage the use of a broad range of theoretical perspectives and empirical methodologies. Topics can be related to but are not limited to the following:

Journal of Trust Research, 2012

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or s... more This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.

Journal of International Management, 2007

This paper seeks to address the fundamental question of how much we can modify and enhance the ow... more This paper seeks to address the fundamental question of how much we can modify and enhance the ownership-location-internalization (OLI) Model of multinational enterprise (MNE) formation to reflect the new evidence of MNE latecomers from the developing countries. The evidence of three longitudinal cases from China suggests that the traditional OLI and the newly proposed linkage-leverage-learning (LLL) Model of MNE formation can be readily integrated within a content-process framework of MNE evolution so as to better explain all types of MNE from both the developed and the developing countries.

Asia Pacific Journal of Management, 2011

It has long been recognized that indigenous research should be helpful, if not essential, for an ... more It has long been recognized that indigenous research should be helpful, if not essential, for an adequate understanding of local phenomena. The indigenous approach is consistent with, but extends beyond, the repeated calls for contextualizing management and organization research. However, the challenges of indigenous research are enormous. The purpose of this article is to shed light on these challenges by providing an integrative framework of indigenous research. In particular, I seek to explicate the existing conceptual confusions and flesh out the appropriate methodological procedures for indigenous research on Chinese management. To illustrate the framework, I show the value of yin-yang thinking by developing a cognitive frame, Yin-Yang Balance, to illustrate the unique and novel features of local perspective, including its application to case study method.

Journal of International Management, 2010

Integrating the conventional models with the emerging models, we propose a learning-based view of... more Integrating the conventional models with the emerging models, we propose a learning-based view of internationalization for multinational enterprise (MNE), especially for MNE latecomers as the new species of MNE from the emerging economies. Built upon the duality lens and transaction value perspective, this learning-based view frames the pattern of cross-border learning in terms of both learning motive and learning capability as a learning trajectory, with distinctive entry strategies as the primary applications of such learning trajectories. The learning trajectories on the dimensions of exploitative and exploratory learning as well as unilateral and bilateral leaning jointly constitute an overall framework of MNE evolution with cross-border learning as its central theme, especially in the process of an accelerated internationalization. In particular, we frame cross-border alliance as a special form for bilateral learning in terms of co-exploitation and co-exploration, which motivates and enables the accelerated internationalization of MNE latecomers. Finally, we identify four major learningbased issues as new "big questions" to reflect the emerging paradigm shift from hierarchybased unilateral exploitation to network-based bilateral exploration with the theme that hierarchy is best for exploiting the extant core competence, while strategic alliance is best for exploring a novel core competence.

Asia Pacific Journal of Management