ABSTRACT
The rapid economic growth since economic reforms were launched and the ‘open door’ policy initiated in 1978 in China has increasingly attracted the attention of academic researchers (e.g., Luo 1995; Child 1999; Warner 1999; Law, Tse and Zhou 2003; Atuahene-Gima and Li 2004; Zhou, Wu and Luo 2007). With the entry of China into the WTO and the implementation of various regional development policies and entrepreneurship, it is timely to understand how firms in China may enhance performance and gain competitive advantage across domestic regions and in this more globalized and increasingly competitive market. Among recent developments in China, entrepreneurship, as one of the major approaches to business development, has been emphasized and in the meantime, human resource management (HRM) practices are particularly important in supporting such an approach (Wang and Zang 2005). Indeed, human resources have been identified as a critical source of sustainable competitive advantage (Wright, McMahan and McWilliams 1994; Wright and Barney 1998). Despite much research on entrepreneurship in Western countries (e.g., Zahra, Jenning and Kuratko 1999; Daily, McDougall, Covin and Dalton 2002; Covin, Green and Slevin 2006), research in China, the largest emerging economy, has been active but still lagging behind (Liu, Luo and Shi 2003; Luo, Zhou and Liu 2005). More and more studies focus on regional policies and HRM practices (Wang and Zang 2005). In coping with the challenges of the economic reform and rapid organizational changes, HRM research in China has shifted its focus from more functional HRM practices to more integrated HRM development and strategic HRM practices (Wang 2006). It is important, given recent HRM studies conducted under the context of organizational reform and innovation, that we introduce a strategic entrepreneurship perspective and more regional considerations into studies in this field.
