Dissertation Proposal Grants and Workshop
Revised Call for Proposals
Deadline: November 15, 2009

Context-Sensitive Management Research in China
(Previously Indigenous Management Research in China)

Click here for the PDF version of the call

IACMR is offering grants to fund Dissertation Proposals that focus on management in China, using a contextual-sensitive approach. Grant recipients will be invited to participate in a dissertation development workshop at the June 2010 IACMR conference in Shanghai.

We invite proposals of dissertations on the following topics of management:

  • Business and family business models
  • Learning and knowledge management
  • Social capital and guanxi
  • Ethics, and corruption and corporate social responsibility
  • Leadership, trust, and Chinese culture
  • Human resources and employee relations
  • Employee well-being, justice and social relations inside firms

Please refer to the article by Whetten (2009), Whetten, Felin and King (2009), Farh, Cannella and Lee (2006), Johns (2006), and Tsui, (2004, 2006, 2007) for a discussion of context-sensitive research. To put it simply, contextual-sensitivity involves using elements of the context to extend and modify existing theories or develop new theories from a local (Chinese) perspective in analyzing the local (Chinese) phenomena. In other words, context-sensitive research may involve either theory testing or theory building. We particularly welcome research proposals that engage in deep contextualization and develop new theories to explain unique Chinese management phenomena, because existing theories may not be able to explain the uniqueness of some local phenomena.

IACMR will fund up to five grants of 10,000 RMB for the top five dissertation proposals, and five grants of 5,000 RMB for the next five best dissertation proposals. The students of the ten award winning dissertation proposals will be invited to the dissertation proposal workshop at the June 2010 IACMR conference in Shanghai (June 17-20) where there will be faculty advisors to help students better develop their research design and improve the rigor and potential impact of their dissertations. In addition to the dissertation grant, all the award students will receive a conference grant to attend the conference. Please go to www.iacmr.org to see the conference website for conference information.

Applicant qualifications include the following:

  1. Applicants should be at the pre-dissertation proposal stage in their program (currently in year 2 or 3).
    Due to differences in educational systems, there is some flexibility in interpreting the requirement of who can qualify for the Dissertation Workshop. Our goal is to assist students who are putting together their research design. Thus, students who are already collecting their research data are probably too far along to qualify, but those doctoral students who still have leeway in designing their research will benefit from the Workshop. Thus, a student who is still designing the research and will not start data collection until summer 2010 will benefit the most. For those who will have some data in hand but still can modify their research design, please clarify the status of your research in the proposal in as much detail as possible.
  2. Applicants must be active paid members of the International Association for Chinese Management Research. If you are yet not a member, please join and pay membership (www.iacmr.org or www.iacmr.org.cn) before the submission deadline of Nov 15, 2009.

 

The application should include the following:

  1. A one-page biography (in English) that includes your name, year in the doctoral program, your university, your dissertation advisor’s name, your career interests and any papers that you have published or presented (list no more than five).
  2. A 6-page proposal written in English (see below for details).
  3. A signed letter (PDF file with the advisor’s signature) from a faculty advisor commenting on your research potential and affirming that you are working on the dissertation proposal and that you do not have an approved dissertation proposal at this time.

Preparing the proposal:
The proposal should include a summary of the empirical phenomenon to be analyzed, relevant literature on the issue, any theoretical arguments, the research methodology, and the expected completion date. The entire proposal should be within a limit of six typed pages, single-spaced, 12-pitch font size and Times New Roman font type. The final page (page 6) should include no more than ten publications (among those cited in your proposal) that are most relevant to your topic and a budget with a list of expenses. The entire proposal should be 7 pages with your biography as the first page and citations/budget as the last page.

Submit your proposal and the signed faculty letter to Dr. Marjorie Lyles, Chair of the IACMR Research Committee, at email address iacmr@asu.edu. Award decisions will be announced by Feb 1, 2010.

 

Suggested Readings
These articles can be downloaded on the web version of the Call for proposals on www.iacmr.org

Farh, J.L., Cannella, A.A., & Lee, C. 2006. Approaches to scale development in Chinese management research. Management and Organization Review, 2: 301-318.

Johns, G. 2006. The essential impact of context on organizational behavior. Academy of Management Review, 31(2): 386-408.

Tsui, A.S. 2004. Contributing to global management knowledge: A case for high quality indigenous research. Asia Pacific Journal of Management, 21: 491–513.

Tsui, A.S. 2006. Contextualization in Chinese management research. Management and Organization Review, 2: 1–13.

Tsui, A.S. 2007. From homogenization to pluralism: International management research in the Academy and beyond. Academy of Management Journal, 50: 1353-1364.

Whetten, D. A. An Examination of the interface between context and theory applied to the study of Chinese organizations. Management and Organization Review 5(1), 29-55.

Whetten, D.A., Felin, T., & King, B.G. 2009. The practice of theory borrowing in organizational studies: Current issues and future directions. Journal of Management, 35(3): 537-563.