Doctoral Dissertation Research in Sociology: Business Group Structure and the Dynamics of Firm Performance in the People's Republic of China

9633121在过去的二十年里，中华人民共和国中国公司的经营方式发生了根本性的变化。公司越来越独立于中央权力机构，在这个过程中，公司开始以前所未有的速度增长。然而，中国企业并不是作为孤立的经济实体开展业务。相反，他们正在加入商业团体，并从这些公司间网络中开展业务。研究人员已经证明了组织环境在决定公司行为和结果中所起的核心作用，但还没有系统的努力来证明组织间网络对公司行为和业绩的影响。这项拟议的研究将对中国新兴企业集团的结构进行说明，并记录它们对成员公司业绩的影响。在这个过程中，这项研究还将提供更多关于公司间网络在构建单个公司的行为和业绩中所起的作用的更一般的理论讨论。随着中国的公司不断扩张，并在国际上发挥越来越重要的作用，这项拟议的研究对国内外的管理者和政策制定者都有影响。这项研究将使用定量的面板数据、关于40家中国最大的商业集团及其522家成员公司的财务和网络数据，以及关于更广泛的数据集中包括的6个集团的定性案例研究数据。动态的、多层次的量化数据将有助于使用社会网络分析技术来描述群体的结构，并使用分层回归分析来测试这种结构对企业行为和绩效的影响。这项提案的资金将有助于收集第二波量化数据(包括所有网络数据)以及案例研究数据。***

9633121 Nee The way in which firms in the People's Republic of China conduct business has been fundamentally altered in the past two decades. Firms have gained increasing independence from central authority and, in the process, have begun to grow at unprecedented rates. Chinese firms are not, however, conducting business as isolated economic entities. Rather they are joining business groups and conducting business from within these interfirm networks. Researchers have documented the central role organizational environments play in determining firm behavior and outcomes, but no systematic effort has been made to document the impact interorganizational networks have on firm behavior and performance. The proposed research will provide an account of the structure of the emergent Chinese business groups and document their impact on the performance of member firms. In the process, this research will also inform more general theoretical discussions about the role interfirm networks play in structuring the behavior and performance of individual firms. The proposed research also has implications for mangers and policy makers both in China and abroad as China's firms continue to expand and play an increasingly important international role. This research will employ quantitative panel data, financial and network data on the 40 largest Chinese business groups and their 522 member firms, as well as qualitative case study data on six of the groups included in the broader data set. The dynamic, multi-level quantitative data will facilitate the use of the techniques of social network analysis to describe the structure of the groups and hierarchial regression analysis to test the effects the structure has on firm behavior and performance. The funding of this proposal will facilitate the collection of the second wave of the quantitative data (including all network data) as well as the case study data. ***