The Development of an Instrument for Evaluating Chinese Business Strategy Orientation from Western Theoretical Underpinning (Report‪)‬

ABSTRACT The acceleration of China's integration towards the global economy and the ever changing business environment under its continued economic transition has heightened the need for overseas investors and Multi National Companies (MNCs) to understand the Chinese business strategy orientation in the Chinese relationship based society. Moreover, the disparity of business strategic underpinning between Chinese and Western organisations that has been accentuated in the globalisation of business has made it imperative to develop an instrument to evaluate the Chinese business strategy orientation in the Chinese business context. This paper explains the comprehensive and rigorous investment that was made to develop a 24 item scale for evaluating Chinese business organisations in the Chinese operational context. The instrument was successfully developed through three empirical studies under 15 distinctive processing phases. The initial endeavours of developing the instrument was reported in Volume 13 Issue 1, 2005, of RPHRM. The results demonstrate that the newly developed instrument has adequate internal consistency with good validity and reliability to be employed in the Chinese business environment. Implications for developing an instrument and undertaking a cross-cultural study are discussed.