Chinese management studies: a systematic literature review

The purpose of this paper is to explore and synthesize empirical research on Chinese organizations since 2017, to contribute to the academic study of Chinese management, and to highlight the main variables through which researchers currently study Chinese corporate management. Further-more, it aims to provide a comprehensive and culturally informed picture for both researchers and practitioners worldwide, particularly in the Central and Eastern European region, which has been steadily strengthening its economic ties with China over the past decade. The paper follows a systematic literature review approach. Following the steps of the SLR, the 150 most-cited empirical research papers published between 2017 and 2022 were selected from the Web of Science database. Deductive and inductive coding were applied consecutively on the 729 variables obtained from the studies to outline the major research themes. We found that organizational behavior has been the most studied dimension of Chinese organizations, with emphasis on individuals and HRM practices. The second largest stream addresses corporate strategy, dominated by innovation- and sustainability-oriented strategies. At the same time, organizational structure has received less attention recently.