On June 6, Professor Xia Jun, the professor of Naveen Jindal School of Business of the University of Texas at Dallas and adjunct distinguished professor of Shandong University, visited the School of Management to give an academic lecture and was invited to participate in a symposium on the construction of business administration disciplines. The lecture, one of the famous lecture series in the School of Management, was hosted by Vice Dean Professor Wang Yimin with the participation of young faculty and master and doctoral students.
Professor Xia Jun shared a fascinating report with the theme of “Theory-Driven Management Research”. With the research problem, Professor Xia Jun discussed the similarities and differences among theory-driven research, phenomenon-driven research and data-driven research, emphasizing that theory should conform to social construction and research needs imagination. Besides, Professor Xia Jun talked about his own experience of transforming his research between different theoretical perspectives, and gave an insight into how to conduct research design, how to write, and how to publish high-quality articles. Finally, he emphasized that scholars might face the situation of “there must be a root reason for waiting for a long time”, and pointed out the importance of focusing on their own research field and shaping their academic identity.
In the afternoon, Professor Xia Jun held a thematic discussion with faculty and students. He combined his own experience of studying research and publishing articles in top journals to answer questions on career planning, research topics, paper writing, and journal publication. In the course of the symposium, teachers and students fully interacted with each other, and Professor Xia Jun patiently answered the questions on site with the warm atmosphere of the discussion.
Professor Xia Jun is currently at Naveen Jindal School of Business, the University of Texas at Dallas. His research focuses on organization theory (resource dependence, power and institutional processes), corporate strategy (M&A, joint ventures, alliances and divestitures), social networks (embeddedness outcomes), international business (foreign market expansion, state property rights and institutional change in transition/emerging countries). His articles have been published in top management journals such as Academy of Management Journal, Strategic Management Journal, and Organization Science. With 10 papers published in Strategic Management Journal, he is one of the Chinese scholars who have published the most articles in Strategic Management Journal in recent years.
