讲好“中国故事”——管理学者的责任与行动方向

Telling Chinese Stories:Management Scholars’Responsibilities and Action Orientations

近年来,越来越多的管理学者呼吁“研究中国问题、讲好中国故事”。尽管一批学者对“本土管理研究”的基本问题(如对象、原则和方法论等)进行了探讨和澄清,但从研究实践的角度来看,我们仍不十分清楚中国管理好故事是什么,以及如何发现和讲述中国管理好故事。本文通过整理、归纳和剖析国内外期刊上呈现的优秀中国管理故事,针对以下三方面内容进行深入探讨:究竟什么样的故事是好的中国管理故事?在研究想法产生阶段,我们应该如何提出重要的、有价值的研究问题?在研究设计和执行阶段,我们应该如何选择合适的方法、规范的操作来提升研究的严谨性和可靠性?希望通过对管理研究案例的梳理和分析,激发研究者对本土现象的关注和兴趣,从研究实践的角度为国内管理学研究者讲好中国管理故事指明方向。

Recently,management scholars have paid increasingly attention to Chinese management phenomena and Chinese management stories.Most indigenous scholars have clarified the basic problems about indigenous management research,including research object,research principle,and research method diagram.However,we still feel confused about what good Chinese management stories are and how to discover and tell such stories.In response to these problems,we collect and examine“Chinese management stories”published in indigenous and international journals to discuss how to frame good research based on Chinese practices.Through collecting,reviewing and analyzing representative Chinese management stories(as shown in table 1),the following three questions are discussed in depth:(1)What are the criteria of evaluating wonderful Chinese management stories such as significance,novelty,curiosity,rooted in Chinese culture and establishing a foothold in China society?(2)How could we better propose important and valuable research questions,including finding research questions within the Chinese management practice context,participating in relevant theoretical dialogues through identifying theoretical gaps or inappropriate underlying premises,and deepening research questions through tracing the traditional Chinese culture(e.g.,Confucianism or Taoism)?(3)How could we choose appropriate research methods and conduct valid operation to improve research quality?For example,scholars should properly match different research methods(i.e.,qualitative research method,quantitative research method,and mixed research method)with various research questions,select appropriate samples and procedures,and conduct precise measurement and operationalization to promote the quality of research designs.Our work could provide indigenous scholars with vivid cases to better understand what good Chinese management stories are,and also offer them practical directions to develop and frame outstanding Chinese management stories.We hope that our analysis of these research cases could inspire scholars to focus on Chinese management phenomena and shed light on the way Chinese scholars study indigenous problems.