Becoming bigger or stronger first is the problem that many enterprises must face. Emerging markets offer many growth opportunities; consequently, enterprises often fall into the trap of blindly pursuing these opportunities without regard to the internal management capabilities. Zhou Nan, an Associate Professor from NKBS, studied this topic, and published the latest research achievementGrowth or Profit? Strategic Orientations and Long-Term Performance in China in the Strategic Management Journal as the first author. This study provides theory-based logical and empirical evidence to support the view that a profit-oriented strategy (becoming stronger first) may be superior to a growth strategy (becoming bigger first) on a long-term basis.
Associate Professor Zhou Nan also published the latest research achievement Foreign Subsidiary CSR as a buffer against parent firm reputation risk in Journal of International Business Studies (an international top journal) as the first author, focusing on the impact of the parent company reputation risk on the level of corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities of foreign subsidiaries. According to the study, the positive correlation between the parent company reputation risk and foreign subsidiaries’ CSR activities is weak for the subsidiaries that report directly to the parent company, operate in the host country for a longer time and have a big institutional gap between the host and parent countries. The above conclusions are strongly verified by unique samples of subsidiaries of Chinese large MNEs from 2009 to 2016.
Strategic Management Journal and Journal of International Business Studies are 2 of 24 top academic journals of business schools selected by University of Texas at Dallas (UTD24), and the internationally acknowledged top journals in management.
Zhou Nan is an associate professor and doctoral supervisor of NKBS, and one of 100 young academic leaders of Nankai University. She has been engaged in corporate strategy and international business research for more than 10 years, focusing on the growth approach and competitive strategy of enterprises in emerging market economies. She has published many articles on international top journals such as SMJ and JIBS, and published a book in English. She has been nominated by the Association of International Business (AIB) as the most promising scholar under the age of 40.
