The 6th Frontiers of Business Research in China International Conference Held Successfully

The 6th Frontiers of Business Research in China International Conference, hosted by Frontiers of Business Research in China (FBR), Renmin Business School was held successfully on May 24-25, 2019 in Beijing. The conference theme is Innovative Business Administration for Sustainable Economic Growth. More than 110 academic scholars and graduate students from more than 40 domestic and international universities attended the conference.

Prof. Ziliang Deng, Associate Dean of Renmin Business School welcomed the conference participants in the opening speech. FBR, launched in 2007, builds a platform for Chinese and international scholars to exchange and publish high-quality researches in business administration, to promote China contextualized research to the world, and to enhance the global influence of Chinese business scholars. FBR is now indexed by many international databases, including Scopus and ESCI, and has awarded the “Excellent International Impact Academic Journals of China (Humanities and Social Sciences)” consecutively from 2016 to 2018. Between 2017 and 2018, FBR’s number of submissions received increase by 105%, number of downloads was quintupled, and the impact factor was also increased. Prof. Deng stressed that this year, FBR will focus on theory and practice generated from areas that China is on the leading edge, such as ecommerce, sharing economies and platform enterprises. He thanked the participants, editorial team, authors, reviewers and readers of the Journal and the Conference, and appealed to all participants to continue their support to FBR by contributing their manuscripts, helping to review submissions, following and citing FBR published papers. 

Prof. Ziliang Deng

The 6th FBR International Conference consisted of three keynote speeches, one research workshop and 11 concurrent sessions.

Prof. Tarun Chordia of Emory University, Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Financial Markets, delivered a speech on real-time market efficiency, focused on the relation between low latency activity and earnings announcements. He pointed out that the improvement of market efficiency by low-latency activities is significant, robust and has a causal impact, at the frequency of corporate decision-making, risk sharing and hedging. This conclusion effectively supports the view that high-frequency trading, in nowadays in millisecond, has positive social impact.

Prof. Tarun Chordia

Prof. Miriam Erez of Israel institute of Technology, Associate Editor of Journal of International Business Studies, gave a speech on the theme of multi-level culture and innovation. She emphasized that national culture influences cultural and creative activities at different levels, including region, organization, team, situation and individual. When conducting research, scholars should pay more attention to the impact of different level factors on culture and innovation.

Prof. Miriam Erez

Prof. Mike Peng of University of Texas (Dallas), Honorary Managing Editor and Consultant of Asia Pacific Journal of Management, discussed the relation between Guanxi and corporate governance in his speech. Through meta-analysis, he proposed that independent boards are effective and good practices of corporate governance, but whether the CEO duality is beneficial to corporate development still needs to be further discussed. In essence, the study of corporate governance is the study of Guanxi, and the study of Chinese corporate governance needs to fully understand the importance of Guanxi.

Prof. Mike Peng

In the Research Workshop on HRM, Prof. Kaifeng Jiang of Ohio State University discussed the importance of time issue in strategic HRM research. Prof. Karin Sanders of University of New South Wales introduced the opportunities and challenges of research on HR strength.

35 papers in the areas of Accounting and Taxation, Investment, Corporate Finance, Leadership, Teams, Employees, Multilevel Investigation of OBHR, Corporate Management, General strategy, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and Organizations in Chinese Context were presented in 11 parallel sessions. Four “Best Paper Awards” were issued to professors and PhD students from West Virginia University, USA, University of Essex, UK, Shanghai University of International Business and Economics, and Renmin University of China. Dr. Daxuan Zhao of Renmin School of Business received the “Best Reviewer Award.”

Prof. Steven Shuye Wang, Executive Editor-in-Chief (third from right), and winners of the “Best Paper Award” and “Best Reviewer Award”

In the coming October, FBR is going to host the 2019 China Accounting and Financial Innovation Forum, jointly with Beijing Normal University-Hong Kong Baptist University United International College in Zhuhai, China. The 7th FBR International Annual Conference will be held in the early summer of 2020.