（Pre-submission required）

Full name and contact information of the chair or organizer, indicated with an asterisk (*) by the chair/organizer’s name

Organizers:

Winslow ROBERTSON*
EMLyon Business School, Postdoctoral Fellow
robertson@em-lyon.com

Chenjian ZHANG*
University of Bath, Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor)
cz528@bath.ac.uk

Boyi CHEN*
University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, School of Management and Economics, Ph.D. Student
lonnin@163.com

Presenters/Facilitators:

Maoliang BU
Nanjing University, School of Business, Professor
bml@nju.edu.cn

Weiwen LI
Sun Yat-Sen University, School of Business, Professor
iweiw6@mail.sysu.edu.cn

Jianjun ZHANG
Peking University, Guanghua School of Management, Professor
jjzhang@gsm.pku.edu.cn

Tian WEI
Fudan University, School of Management, Professor
weitian@fudan.edu.cn

Xuemei XIE
Tongji University, School of Economics and Management, Professor
xxm@tongji.edu.cn

Goal of the workshop:

A confluence of policies has made it more difficult to travel to and conduct research on China going back a decade. Based on the overwhelmingly positive response of the 2023 and 2024 Professional Development Workshop (PDW) sessions of the same name at the Academy of Management (AoM) Annual Meetings, which drew an audience of 62 and 75 respectively including speakers and facilitators, we wish to continue assembling an interdisciplinary group of experts to share their experience doing research on China using a variety of methods. As both qualitative and quantitative Early Career Researchers (ECRs) continue to face research uncertainty around issues of data access and publishing, these conversations will be a necessary part of doing research within and on China for the foreseeable future. What happens if collaboration with China-based scholars is even more difficult, or different kinds of Chinese data, both qualitative and quantitative, are no longer accessible? What are the challenges and opportunities of publishing research with Chinese data in these turbulent times? This PDW aims to provide scholars in all management disciplines with the tools necessary to answer these questions, whether focusing on organizations operating in China or Chinese organizations operating abroad.

Content of the workshop

This PDW is divided into two broad themes: access and publishing. This reflects some of the challenges inherent to Chinese research. Previously routine research funding and projects from Chinese colleagues might no longer be approved by key stakeholders anymore. In addition, despite a growing interest in understanding how Chinese firms operate overseas, scholars still face challenges identifying reliable sources and building appropriate datasets. Last but not least, theorizing the implications from Chinese data to reach general management scholars has always been a challenge. This PDW hopes to address each of these concerns by providing IACMR members an opportunity to share their experiences as well as build research solidarity among quantitative and qualitative scholars.

Thus, the format of the PDW will reflect this attempt at experience sharing. We will request a hybrid event held in the morning for two reasons. First, we wish to include scholars who cannot attend IACMR due to budget or visa constraints. Second, many speakers and facilitators might not be able to travel to China for IACMR and we wish to provide them with the opportunity to participate. Not only will this allow for tailored feedback for individual projects, as well as provide strategies for data access, but also we will encourage participants to promote the qualitative and/or quantitative data they already have. This will allow scholars interested in the China context but with an early-stage project to know what is feasible and who to contact in case they wish to move forward.

We conceive of this PDW as a continuation in our attempt to build a long-term scholarly community on this topic of research uncertainty, and will provide unofficial networking opportunities as we have already created a WeChat messaging groups to promote easier exchange of ideas for the future. Finally, we will conduct interviews with PDW participants to determine what programming IACMR member wish to see going forward so we can plan for future sessions.

The growing interest in China at the Academy might benefit from an understanding that certain research methods and strategies that work in one context might not be as applicable in China. Indeed, there are a range of scenarios that could make doing China research even more difficult going forward, and this PDW will allow scholars to reflect on the challenges they faced, prepare for new research challenges going forward, and explore how these challenges might turn into research opportunities. By sharing this knowledge with the IACMR community, it will help scholars both conduct this research and publish these findings in the future.

Total Time

3 hours

Number of Participants

Presentation and Discussion – Open to all IACMR attendees
Roundtables (in-person)/Breakout sessions (virtual) – Up to 18

Part 1: Introduction

Objective: To offer an overview of challenges of accessing Chinese data and publishing with that data

Part 2: Panel Discussions

Objective: To highlight data access issues and offer solutions that can lead to publishing on these topics

Panel and Q & A session will be moderated by the PDW organizers

Break
4 minutes

Panel and Q & A session will be moderated by the PDW organizers

Break
4 minutes

Part 3: Roundtables (In-person)/Breakout Sessions (Virtual)

Objective: To connect scholars facing similar difficulties around research uncertainty and provide actionable advice for individual research projects for registered participants

Part 4: Conclusion

Objective: To conclude the PDW and encourage feedback for future sessions

Intended participants and admission criteria for the participants

This PDW is built around Ph.D. students and Early Career Researchers. We will have the panel discussion open to conference participants, but the facilitated sessions will be limited to 18 participants who must submit a two-paragraph description of what their current or future project is and how this PDW can directly assist them. Please submit the proposal to Winslow A. Robertson   robertson@em-lyon.com, the deadline for the submission is June 1, 2025

Time requirement of the workshop

The workshop should take a total of three hours and use a hybrid format, ideally around 9:00 am or later. It will start with a brief introduction of five minutes to highlight the twin themes of access and publishing. Then there will be two three-person panel discussions alternating between qualitative methods, quantitative methods, and publishing, whereby each speaker will present for 12 minutes respectively, followed by a 10-minute Q&A session, then followed by a four-minute break. After the second panel and four-minute break concludes, there will be breakout sessions on each specific subtopic lasting 60 minutes, where the speakers will facilitate sessions to give registered participants more time to directly engage and receive suggestions for their individual projects. These breakout sessions are designed specifically to connect researchers with subject-matter experts on these topics, and will comprise of no more than three participants per facilitator. Finally, we will close out the event by delivering concluding remarks of five minutes.

Abstract

This PDW aims to continue extant discussions of practical resolutions to the challenges of Chinese data access and publishing in management journals with China as the research context. Building on the success of the previous two year’s PDWs at AoM which addressed issues of Chinese data access in a context of research uncertainty in China, we have sought feedback from that session to improve our offerings for IACMR. This PDW will discuss how research uncertainty around traveling and working in China impacts scholarly work and output then propose potential solutions to these challenges. This PDW will connect participants with scholars who share a common interest in the Chinese context, and the PDW will consist of three parts: (1) an overview of the issues faced by scholars; (2) two panel discussions with leading scholars on overcoming data access challenges, analyzing their respective data, and publishing their findings; and (3) individual roundtable/breakout sessions tailored for interactive discussion between speakers, facilitators, and participants.