The influence of national culture, history, and institution on strategic management in Chinese firms: A complexity based perspective

China has become the driving engine for the world economy and presents many opportunities for foreign firms. Although much research effort has been devoted to studying strategic management in Chinese organisations, China is still one of the least studied countries. This paper takes a new approach - complexity view - to examining the strategic management in Chinese organisations. It aims to explain why Chinese managers behave differently to their Western counterparts. To do so, literature on the complexity studies is firstly reviewed and synthesised. This paper then examines how institutional and cultural settings and Chinese history influence the strategic management in Chinese organisations. Finally, several managerial implications based on the results of this paper are suggested