Few phrases in the discourse of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have proven as durable and pliable as “seeking truth from facts.” The phrase was first used by Mao Zedong in the 1930s as a way to legitimate the CCP's departure from Stalinist direction, and it was later mobilized by Deng Xiaoping to signal a shift from Maoism toward new avenues of policy experimentation. In recent years, as rising tensions in the US-China relationship have produced a burgeoning literature that seeks to understand and interpret Beijing's intentions for a Western audience, the phrase has become as applicable to the study of China as it has long been to the governance of China. This is not merely because the People's Republic of China (PRC) provides an endless source of raw material for speculation and analysis, obscured behind a veil of obfuscation, censorship, and propaganda constructed by the world's largest and most powerful political party. It is also because the stakes of the debate—coming at a time when the role of the West in general, and the United States in particular, has been thrown into doubt by social division, political dysfunction, and economic decline—seem to provide grounds for doubting the motives of anyone who aspires to take a stand on such a crucial yet ambiguous question as the true nature of CCP rule. With so many facts to choose from, how are we to know which will produce the right truths, and more importantly, who is doing the choosing and why?

Bringing democracy to the workplace has gained researchers’ attention during the last few years. In addition to its proorganizational outcomes, democratization at the workplace also helps to eradicate organizational negativities. The present study investigates these claims by empirically examining the relationship between organizational democracy, perception of politics, and workplace incivility. A sample of 300 full-time employees working in fifteen different banks in the district of Gujrat Pakistan was obtained. The structural equation modeling technique was used to test the proposed hypotheses. The results indicated that workplace democracy is negatively associated with the perception of organizational politics and workplace incivility. Nevertheless, when there is organizational democracy with a supportive environment, it further reduces its incivility and politics. The study provides empirical evidence to managers and organizational decision makers in developing democratic workplaces to promote participative culture and eradicate organizational negativities. More studies on democratic practices with different contexts and factors are discussed and proposed for future studies.

This article details how and why officials in the United States and the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland developed policies and initiatives to promote US capital investments. It analyzes these policies in the context of decolonization, white minority rule, and the Cold War in Africa. It further shows how US business interests, especially in the mining industry, increased their investments and influenced policy. Drawing from Zimbabwean archives, it argues that these competing priorities produced inconsistent results that tended to support US imperialism and hinder nationalist movements in British Central Africa.

This article examines debates over banking regulation in Germany that culminated in the 1934 Reich Banking Law. Existing accounts have traced its origins to the 1931 banking crisis or the 1933 Nazi seizure of power. Yet, rather than the outcome of a single financial or political crisis, banking regulation was the product of longer-term discussions on national security, legal rationale, and financial globalization. Prior to World War I, officials expressed concerns over Germany's dependence on foreign capital, while later efforts to improve liquidity in the banking sector continued in the 1920s. The construction of a regulatory policy thus arose from a series of investigations into how to protect the German economy from foreign crises, thereby reflecting the interdependence of politics and finance.

Murmann and Vogt's (2022) analysis of the automobile industry using a capabilities framework that integrates both dynamic and ordinary capabilities supports an informative table which sets out the major relevant capabilities that incumbents, start-ups, and diversifying entrants would need to develop or access via contract or other arrangement (see Murmann and Vogt, 2022, Table 3). Jiang and Lu (2022) have further discussed new industry paradigms which they suggest will greatly challenge – and perhaps overwhelm – automotive industry incumbents. We believe that their insights can be taken a step further by focusing on two areas: first, the greatly increased availability of outsourced manufacturing driven by the shift to electric vehicle (‘EV’) powertrains; and second, the ongoing transformation of the driver and passenger experience that is driven by software–user experience software integrated with networked consumer service ecosystems.

In 2018, in the Dialogue, Debate, and Discussion section of MOR 14.3, an interesting series of articles was published in the ‘Forum on Tesla and the Global Automotive Industry’, where researchers discussed the future dynamics of the global automotive sector. In their work, Perkins and Murmann (2018) contended that, based on Tesla's success, a well-funded company could develop a new electric vehicle (EV) from scratch and move it into production within three to five years if it would invest one to two billion USD in design, development, and manufacturing. Expressing a contrasting view, MacDuffie (2018) questioned this possibility, arguing that EV product architecture is unlikely to become substantially more modular and any new entrant would therefore have to develop the ordinary capabilities that current automotive original equipment manufacturers possess, and there is no guarantee that a firm can develop such capabilities. Teece (2018) joined the debate by proposing a capability-based framework within which to analyze four paradigm shifts that have marked progress in the global automotive industry: EVs, autonomous vehicles, connected cars, and personal mobility services. He argues that these paradigm shifts have created opportunities for new entrants while posing challenges to incumbent firms. To navigate through the uncertainty associated with these paradigm shifts, incumbent firms need to enhance and refine their dynamic capabilities and leverage their integration skills. Jiang and Lu (2018) based their contribution to this debate on the development of the Chinese EV market. In MOR 15.1, published in 2019, Teece (2019) further elaborated his framework to facilitate analysis of the prospects for Chinese firms seeking a stronger foothold in the global automobile market. All these articles have been well received by MOR readers and were ranked among the top 20 articles in full-text view times between June 2021 and June 2022.