Letter from Editor (MOR 21.4)

We are pleased to share the fourth issue of 2025(MOR 21.4). Although its release was delayed by production hurdles at the publisher, we believe the high-quality research within remains timely and impactful.
2025年第4期《组织管理研究》(MOR 21.4)现已发布。虽因出版方制作周期原因导致出刊有所滞后、未能如期与大家见面，但我们坚信，本期的高水平研究依然能为读者带来深刻启发与学术洞见。

It is in the beautiful August weather of Seattle that I am compiling this issue. To continue with what was done in the last issue, we open with the second editorial essay on how to conduct Chinese management research (Zhang, 2025). It discusses three approaches – counterintuitive, contrasting, and theory integration – to make theoretical contributions through contextualization. Following that is a perspective paper (Easley, Tian, Yang, & Lee, 2025) that examines how university curriculum reforms shape entrepreneurial tendencies among alumni. The authors find that increased educational choice fosters entrepreneurship but also exacerbates inequalities, disproportionately benefiting those with preexisting advantages. They then offer implications for designing more equitable educational policies.

The two regular articles in this issue are both related to business networks while manifested in different business domains. One focuses on alliance partner repeatedness and its portfolio reconfiguration (Xie, Gao, Li, Bi, & Stevens, 2025), in which the authors find that higher partner repeatedness drives firms to reconfigure their alliance by re-introducing previous partners, rather than introducing new partners or dropping the active ones. The other article studies the role of family formal business networks in the relationship between family ownership and firm digital transformation (Ko, Chen, Liu, Wu, & Jiang, 2025). The authors find a negative relationship between family ownership and firm digital transformation efforts, but more importantly, this negative relationship weakens when family firms participate in informal business networks or involve multiple next-generation members in leadership positions.

Finally, we have three exciting articles for the special issue on New Technology and OB/HRM in China. The guest editors for this special issue, Ning Li, Sam Kai Chi Yam, Wei He, and Helen Zhao, have worked for more than three years to develop it. Leveraging the rich archival unobtrusive data on digital platforms in various companies, the authors employ innovative methods — digital-context experiments, real-time behavioral tracking, and machine-learning-assisted theory building — to convert granular data into valuable management knowledge. The first article (Liu, Huang, Ju, Shi, & Xu, 2025) explores leader smile emoji use and its influence on follower perception of the leader and reveals divergent effects due to different psychological mechanisms. The second article (Pan, Ji, Cao, Li, & Hu, 2025) investigates the temporal patterns of employee work productivity before, during, and after a crisis event in a high-tech off campus tutoring company. More importantly, it studies how leader-member online communication frequency influences the productivity trajectories during crisis adaptation. The last article (Gao, Luo, Wang, & Li, 2025) uses a machine learning inductive method to uncover curvilinear interactive patterns between knowledge diversity and network density in fostering team innovation in a prominent high-technology firm in China.

I hope you will gain unique insights from every article in this issue. I also hope you enjoy the rest of summer!

With gratitude,

Xiao-Ping Chen, Editor of MOR

Editorial Essay

Chenjian Zhang
Contextualization for Theoretical Contributions: Three Approaches in Management Research

Perspective

Charles Eesley, Xiaocong Tian, Delin Yang, and Yong Suk Lee
University Education Reform and Entrepreneurship

Regular Articles

En Xie, Xuehao Gao, Huahua Li, Jingyu Bi, and Charles Stevens
Partner Repeatedness and Alliance Reconfiguration

Wai Wai Ko, Shihui Chen, Gordon Liu, Bingde Wu, and Nan Jiang
Family Ownership and Digital Transformation: The Role of Family Formal Business Networks and Next-Generation Dispersion

Special Issue on ‘New Technology and OB/HRM in China’

Introduction Essay
Ning Li, Kai Chi Yam, Wei He, and Helen Hailin Zhao
New Technology and OB/HRM in China: Digital Methods for Organizational Research

Shenming Liu, Mingpeng Huang, Dong Ju, Zhiying Shi, and Minya Xu
My Leader Sent Me a 😊: The Influence of Leader Smile Emoji Usage on Follower Attitude

Jingzhou Pan, Yueting Ji, Wenrui Cao, Yan Li, and Jasmine Hu
Sail Through the Rough Seas: Trajectories of Employee Work Productivity in Times of Crisis and Boundary Conditions

Xin Gao, Jar-Der Luo, Song Wang, and Peter Ping Li
Revisiting the Paradoxes of Knowledge Diversity and Network Structure for Team Innovation: A Machine-Learning Inductive Study