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The context of Hong Kong has nurtured numerous small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) in which the owner/managers have exhibited rather consistent set of characteristics over decades despite shifts in the industrial structure. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how such characteristics can sustain in different industrial environments.

By using the competency approach on a sample of 153 SME owner/managers in the wholesale trade and IT services industries, we conducted hypothesis testing on comparing first, the overall rankings of ten competency areas for SME owner/managers, and second, the ratings of individual competency areas between the two industries.

While there are consistent patterns of competencies across these two contrasting industries in Hong Kong, the owner/managers in IT services industry have significantly higher ratings in innovative, strategic and learning competencies than those in the wholesale trade industry.

Entrepreneurial competencies are not only stimulated or sharpened by the requirements of different industrial environments, but also rooted in the common socio‐cultural background of the owner/managers.

With the ever closer economic and socio‐cultural integration with China, a completely new pattern of entrepreneurial competencies may be required in a new context of entrepreneurship in Hong Kong.

The application of the competency approach allows us to investigate the respective impacts of industrial and socio‐cultural factors in the development of entrepreneurial characteristics, particularly those about Chinese SME owner/managers in Hong Kong.

The purpose of this paper is to report the development and validation of the entrepreneurial behaviour inventory (EBI), an instrument for measuring the entrepreneurial behaviours of corporate managers.

Through actual consulting experience, interviews and discussions with business owners and company managers, 40 incidents were written to describe ten of the most commonly identified entrepreneurial attributes. The response options were developed using behaviourally anchored rating scales and were validated by rank‐order correlation analysis and t‐tests. The authors then conducted a study to examine the dimensionality of the EBI via principal component analysis and to reduce the number of situations from 40 to 12. A confirmatory factory analysis was further conducted using the data from a second sample of corporate managers.

Through an integrated series of studies, the authors identified a reliable and valid four‐factor structure of the EBI. The dimensions are innovativeness, risk taking, change orientation, and opportunism.

The EBI is an effective and objective instrument for assessing entrepreneurial behaviours applicable to both business owners as well as corporate entrepreneurs. Using a simulated incident method with behaviourally anchored rating scales, the EBI provides a sophisticated means of assessing actual behaviours rather than traits or attitudes. The EBI is useful for classifying types of entrepreneurs and forming the basis for training and developing entrepreneurial corporate managers.

The purpose of this paper is to examine if corporate entrepreneurship in terms of innovation and proactivity that has been developed in the international joint ventures (IJVs) in the Chinese cultures.

A structured questionnaire with a systematic sampling approach was adopted and sent to 800 firms (400 from the manufacturing industry and 400 from the servicing industry) in Beijing. Descriptive statistics, correlation analyses and stepwise multiple regression were used.

Corporate entrepreneurship exists in the IJVs, yet the Western‐Chinese JVs are more innovative and proactive. It is found that organisational variables such as flexibility, operational delegation, control system and the implementation of differentiation or growth strategy are significantly related to both innovation and proactivity. However, organisational variables on strategic delegation and risk‐taking culture are significantly related to proactivity only. On the other hand, the implementation of cost leadership is found to be unrelated to either innovation or proactivity.

Since the sample was drawn from IJVs in Beijing, comparative studies could be done on IJVs across different cities in China.

The significant results provide insights for studying the cultural context of China's IJVs.

Asian‐Chinese JVs have to improve corporate entrepreneurship posture in their management. This will attract professionals with international experience from different parts of the world to work in China's IJVs.

The entrepreneurial posture of an IJV can be measured in terms of its ability on innovation and proactivity. It provides benefits to both foreign and local partners in terms of local knowledge, access to market, and cost consideration as well as technological and skills transfers.

Analyzing three perspectives on customer relationship management (CRM) developed by academics, numerous paradoxes are illustrated, as it can be an integrated corporate approach, a specific strategy to customer behavioral modification or differential customer treatment. The paper highlights that an evolutionary change in the concept of CRM is required. Three key findings have been made. First, customers should be the major focus, and companies are actually dealing with customer‐managed relationships (CMR). Second, it is not just a one‐to‐one relationship pattern. The linkages with other parties are the cores of the relationships between customers and companies. It should therefore be a one‐network‐one relationship. Third, a co‐creative approach should be used in order to integrate the CRM and CMR concepts to enable customers to participate in corporate strategy formulation and to encourage companies to cooperate with third parties in serving customers. The financial service sector is taken as a major example to illustrate the full concept of CRM and CMR. Managerial implications arising from the implementation of the co‐creative approach are explored, which include market share and mind share.

The purpose of this study is to explore how vulnerable healthcare consumers foster social support through visual storytelling in social media in navigating healthcare consumption experiences.

This study employs a dual qualitative approach of visual and textual analysis of 180 Instagram posts from female breast cancer patients and survivors who use the platform to narrate their healthcare consumption experiences.

This study demonstrates how visual storytelling on social media normalises hidden aspects of healthcare consumption experiences through healthcare disclosures (procedural, corporeal, recovery), normalising practices (providing learning resources, cohering the illness experience, problematising mainstream recovery narratives) and enabling digital affordances, which in turn facilitates social support among vulnerable healthcare consumers.

This study highlights the potential for visual storytelling on social media to address shortcomings in the healthcare service system and contribute to societal well-being through co-creative efforts that offer real-time and customised support for vulnerable healthcare consumers.

This research highlights that visual storytelling on image-based social media offers transformative possibilities for vulnerable healthcare consumers seeking social support in negotiating the challenges of their healthcare consumption experiences.

This study presents a framework of visual storytelling for vulnerable healthcare consumers on image-based social media. Our paper offers three key contributions: that visual storytelling fosters informational and companionship social support for vulnerable healthcare consumers; recognising this occurs through normalising hidden healthcare consumption experiences; and identifying healthcare disclosures, normalising practices and enabling digital affordances as fundamental to this process.

This paper aims to apply the inventory – Comprehensive Assessment of Team Member Effectiveness (CATME) to examine the development of teamwork skills among freshmen from the Chinese Mainland through a cooperative learning activity (group project) in the context of Hong Kong.

The questionnaire survey was conducted twice, at the beginning (pre) and end (post) of the group project; qualitative interviews were undertaken after their project completion.

It was found that, except for Category 5 (having relevant knowledge, skills and abilities), the post mean scores in all items of other four categories declined, because students’ Chinese Mainland backgrounds led to their different understanding toward teamwork, as unveiled by the qualitative interviews. However their project completion enabled them to acquire the relevant competencies, causing the rise in the mean scores of Category 5.

Limited by the small sample size and American-driven CATME, this study did not observe the significant improvements in students’ self-reported evaluation of teamwork. There should be more applications of this instrument into the Asian and Chinese contexts for having it adapted to different national and cultural situations.

As a gap observed in Chinese Mainland students’ understanding to teamwork, overseas education institutions can incorporate this for curriculum development.

As a pioneer work in applying the CATME in the Chinese Mainland situation, this study implied a significant room for such kind of inventories mainly originated from west to incorporate the diverse national and cultural characteristics.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships among supervisor support, awareness of employees’ developmental needs, motivation to learn, training readiness, motivation to transfer and job performance.

A total of 216 responses from educational organizations in the USA were analyzed using the structural equation modeling method.

The findings indicate that supervisor support for training directly affected motivation to learn; both developmental needs awareness and motivation to learn had direct and significant effects on training readiness, motivation to transfer and job performance; developmental needs awareness directly affected motivation to learn; training readiness directly affected motivation to transfer.

This study investigated how supervisor support contributes to motivation, training and job performance. In addition, this study attempted to bridge the gap in the literature by investigating the relationships among supervisor support, developmental needs awareness, learning motivation, training readiness, transfer motivation and job performance.

By conducting an initial needs assessment of participants, human resource development (HRD) practitioners can reflect on what participants want and need when designing and implementing professional development programs. HRD practitioners can also collaborate with participants’ supervisors to prepare for interventions to improve the quality and practicality of existing professional development programs.

Although the extant literature suggests that organizational support, motivation and training transfer are distinct but highly interrelated constructs; little is known about the predictive properties of a supervisor’s role in the training literature. Supervisors play a crucial role in that they can influence their subordinates on whether to participate in training programs. The ability of supervisors to provide adequate support and engage in comfortable communication about training programs may lead to enhanced motivation to learn and to greater training transfer. These potentially desirable effects motivate the researchers to further explore the nature of this component and its relationship with other training outcome variables.

The luxury brands sales in emerging markets will see rapid growth. When entering the emerging markets, luxury fashion brands always find it challenging to balance adaption with local consumer culture and standardization to maintain their global brand image. The present study attempts to examine this intriguing issue of adaptation and standardization and many other challenges for luxury brands in the emerging market by focusing on China’s luxury market. A case study on China is conducted, which consisted of reviewing academic literature and consulting trade reports, examining over 50 luxury brands’ Chinese websites, reading newspaper articles, conducting field trips to luxury retail outlets, and studying luxury brands’ advertisements in major Chinese fashion magazines. We identified five intriguing market characteristics that must be taken into account in order to succeed in this market. Specifically, we found that to perform well in China’s luxury market, luxury brands should have a good understanding of the conflicting Chinese social cultural sentiments toward luxury consumption. Luxury brands should seek a balance between standardization and adaptation and appeal to both consumers’ converging needs and their desire for products that embrace local elements. Further, given the unique consumer characteristics, luxury brands should better serve the young and economically diverse consumer base in China.