This study investigates the differential effects of internationalization on two dimensions of family firms' performance: growth and profitability. Drawing on the contingency theory, we argue that the successful implementation of internationalization strategy requires an appropriate organization structure, which is usually absent in Chinese family firms. To the extent that such a structure is established, these firms can realize greater benefits from internationalization. From a sample of 225 family firms in China, our predictions receive empirical support. We find that internationalization has a positive impact on growth but a negative impact on profitability. The negative internationalization-firm profitability relationship highlights the challenges internationalizing Chinese family firms face. The positive moderating effect of corporate governance, a critical component of organization structure, underscores the need for appropriate corporate governance to support the implementation of strategy. The findings have important practical implications for the internationalization of Chinese family firms.

Entrepreneurs’ creativity is the starting point of opportunity identification, exploitation, and innovation, so it is generally lauded by journalists, citizen observers, practitioners, and scholars. However, they may overstate the benefits of creative entrepreneurs while neglecting their potential costs. Building on moral disengagement theory, we theorize that a creative mindset enables entrepreneurs to generate reasons to justify their potentially environment-destroying behaviors (i.e., nature disengagement), which in turn increases their favorability of potential opportunities that harm nature. We first developed and validated a scale for measuring nature disengagement and then conducted two randomized between-subject experiments with active entrepreneurs. The empirical results largely supported our theoretical model of the dark side of creativity in the entrepreneurship context.

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This research challenges the idea that teams from more collectivistic cultures tend to perform better. We propose that in contexts in which there are tradeoffs between group goals (i.e., what is best for the group) and relational goals (i.e., what is best for one’s relationships with specific group members), people in less collectivistic cultures primarily focus on group goals but those in more collectivistic cultures focus on both group and relational goals, which can lead to suboptimal decisions. An archival analysis of 100 years of data across three major competitive team sports found that teams from more collectivistic nations consistently underperformed, even after controlling for a number of nation and team characteristics. Three follow-up studies with 108 Chinese soccer players, 109 Singapore students, and 119 Chinese and the U.S. adults provided evidence for the underlying mechanism (i.e., prioritizing relational goals over group goals). Overall, this research suggests a more balanced view of collectivism, highlighting an important context in which collectivism can impair team performance.

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