WEST MEETS EAST: NEW CONCEPTS AND THEORIES Sponsor: Academy of Management Journal Description: GUEST EDITORS: Harry Barkema, Xiao-Ping Chen, Gerard George, Yadong Luo, Anne Tsui Management scholarship has grown tremendously over the past 60 years. Most of our paradigms originated, in terms of concepts, assumptions, and insights, from North America in the 1940s-1980s (resource dependence theory, institutional theory, transaction cost theory, agency theory, equity theory, justice theory, social exchange theory, social network theory, social learning theory, etc.), inspired by the empirical phenomena and cultural, philosophical, and research traditions of the time. They have also been applied to and tested in Europe, Asia, South America and Africa, leading to increasing numbers of publications in top journals such as AMJ (Kirkman & Law, 2005). After centuries of Western leadership in most economic matters, China, India, and the rest of the East, with their emerging economies, are asserting themselves with new vigor on the world stage. The 21st century has commonly been referred to as the Pacific Century (Wilkins, 2010). The world appears to be in a transition from “West leads East” to “West meets East” (Chen & Miller, 2010). It’s time to go beyond Western settings to tap into the empirical phenomena of the East and its cultural, philosophical and broader intellectual tradition to create a richer, more robust and “powerful” field of Management, in terms of understanding and managing organizations and behavior globally (Barkema, 2001; Barkema, Baum, & Mannix, 2002; Tsui, 2007, 2009; Chen & Miller, 2011). Of course “the East” is not a monolithic entity; there are vast differences between the Confucian-based East Asian countries and the Buddhism and Islam-based South Asian cultures, each accounting for over 1.6 billion people. This region comprises countries with varying stages of economic development and a rich variety of cultures. This Special Research Forum (SRF) encourages research and solicits submissions that offer insights (cf. Whetten, 1989) into the “what” (i.e., concepts), “how” (new relationships between concepts), and “why” (new theoretical logic regarding these relationships) of more traditional, as well as in the 21st century, emerging phenomena in Management in the East. We encourage authors to tap into the Eastern intellectual tradition to develop new concepts and theories, tested on data from the East or elsewhere. Contributions would need to offer distinct, new, and powerful theories. We would consider concepts and theories constructed “from the ground up” by observing Eastern phenomena. The new concepts and theories could also be constructed deductively, inspired by the Eastern intellectual tradition. In either case, the concepts, relationships between concepts, and theoretical logic supporting these relationships should be substantiated by empirical data, in concert with the mission of AMJ. The data do not have to be limited to the East. Inclusion of data from elsewhere providing a comparative perspective, enriching the understanding of Eastern management phenomena, or enabling tests of new theories emerging from the Eastern intellectual tradition, are also suitable for submissions to the SRF. Please visit the AMJ Web site to view the description of this SRF Call for Papers in its entirety. Paper Procedure: TIMELINE AND SUBMISSION Submissions are due between September 15 and October 31, 2012. Contributors should follow the directions for manuscript submission described in “Information for Contributors” in the front of each issue of AMJ and on AMJ's Contributor Information Page. For queries about submission, contact AMJ's managing editor, Michael Malgrande at mmalgrande@pace.edu. For questions regarding the content of this Special Research Forum, write to one of the guest editors: Harry Barkema (h.g.barkema@lse.ac.uk), Xiao-Ping Chen (xpchen@u.washington.edu), Gerard George (g.george@imperial.ac.uk), Yadong Luo (yluo@bus.miami.edu), or Anne Tsui (anne.tsui@asu.edu). Type: call for papers Deadline: October 31, 2012 Issue Date: April 20, 2013 Contact Info: Harry Barkema phone: 3 11 04 08 2911 email address: h.g.barkema@lse.ac.uk
