A catalyst for intellectual and social capital in Asia Inc.: 2nd Asia academy of management conference in Singapore - Other Reports and Notices

Organization Studies, Sept-Oct, 2001

Following Asia's strong economic development, the organization of intangible capital creation in Asia is improving through a dedicated professional management association, multiple research outlets, and diversified research activities. The recent Asia Academy of Management Conference in Singapore offered a glimpse of the rich organizational debates that are emerging in the region. A framework suggests that the most promising area of research will be the contextualized creation of unique new knowledge about 'soft' managerial aspects in Asia.

Holding together brings good fortune [...]

Those who are uncertain gradually join.

Whoever comes too late meets with misfortune.

I. Ching

While Asian economies recorded enormous growth rates in past decades, management research in the region failed to keep pace with this rapid material development. Institutions and research outlets lacked the high degree of social organization of their western counterparts. Researchers, the masters of ideas, did not realize their full potential in describing, analyzing, explaining, and predicting organizational practices and performance, and guiding policy makers in their strategic and tactical decisions. This lack of large-scale knowledge creation and dissemination was deplorable in a region that is at least as rich in complexity as Europe, featuring a completely different cultural and spiritual make-up. It may well enrich western world views, as witnessed in the field of traditional medicine, for example. Without a strong academic foundation and stimulating input, it was left to pragmatic leaders such as Deng Xiao Ping (China), Li Guangyao (Singapore), and Dr. Mahathir Mohamad (Malaysia) to catalyze the rapid development.

Recently, things have changed tremendously on three social--organizational fronts -- professional associations, research outlets, and research activities -- a development that has been largely overlooked in the West. First, an Asian Academy of Management (AAM) was initiated in 1997 at the Academy of Management meeting in Boston. From the very beginning, it nurtured strong links with its older brother in the United States. Second, staffing from 2002, the Academy, jointly with the National University of Singapore, will publish the Asia Pacific Journal of Management as its official journal, with a new editorial board, uniting the leading Asia scholars in the world. It was a wise decision to leverage a very rigorous existing journal instead of engaging in wasteful duplication and ruinous competition. Under the leadership of the current editor, it employs the same standards and impartial processes as the best American publications. Third, a second AAM conference was hosted by the National University of Singapore i n December 2000, which was attended by scholars from the entire region. Under the conference theme 'Managing in Asia: Challenges and opportunities in the new millennium', it offered a kaleidoscope of emerging research themes in Asia.

Figure 1 divides the themes into three categories according to their innovativeness -- knowledge replication, extension, and creation -- and differentiates between focus on 'hard' elements (such as management structure) and 'soft' elements (such as management style). I predict the most inspiring research contributions in the upper right-hand corner -- the contextualized creation of unique new knowledge about 'soft' managerial aspects in Asia, which cultural values tend to influence most.

I suggest the following three clusters of contextualized, positive and normative research themes, partly reflected in the best paper proceedings of the AAM conference:

Asian context, strategies, and structures. Asian markets are characterized by exceptionally high uncertainty and complexity. Researchers need to identify critical internal and external success factors and determine how the environment can be shaped through proactive strategies. An example is the study of key factors influencing organizational effectiveness in China (Schlevogt 2000), a country that, due to its increasing world-wide importance, received particular attention at the conference.

Trust-based and value-driven networks seem to be particular dominant phenomena in Asia. Thus, eastern and western managers alike can learn a lot from the region. For example, one paper highlighted that the process of interaction (such as strategic signalling through specific action) accounts for much of the success of interfirm alliances (Lui and Lu 2000). Multinational enterprises need to develop particular cross-cultural leadership skills to excel in this difficult terrain. Managing entrepreneurial expatriates is often as difficult as managing domestic managers.

The Asian MNE and domestic enterprises. Many Asian countries are dominated by networks of small- and medium-sized enterprises. At the same time, Asian multinational enterprises (MNEs) are emerging. Such organizations from Japan and South Korea are well-known, but recently companies from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore have entered the international stage and are progressing rapidly on the value creation curve (from cost leadership to innovation-driven differentiation). Papers suggested that the transfer of human resource management practices can serve as a competitive weapon (Takeuchi and Wakabayashi 2000) and highlighted commonalties and differences in the internationalization strategies of Asian MNEs (Sim and Pandian 2000). A very important phenomenon will be the future emergence of mainland Chinese MNEs, which will have a significant impact on world markets. Purely domestic enterprises are worth studying as well, since they often develop new organizational approaches. One particularly important issue is t he growth of private Chinese enterprises. Even though they account for much of the growth and job creation, researchers have neglected them and focused exclusively on state-owned enterprises.