In this study, we examine the moderating role of subnational institutions (marketization) in the relationship between social stratification, on the one hand, and entrepreneurial choice and income ...growth, on the other. Our analyses, using data from 5,581 individual-wave observations from nine provincial regions in rural China, across six data collection waves, show that: (1) lower-class status is conducive to self-employment, while being from the upper class encourages individuals to become employers; (2) compared to their middle-class counterparts, both upper- and lower-class entrepreneurs enjoy higher levels of income growth; and (3) when subnational marketization is high, the positive effect of being upper class on selecting entrepreneurship as a career is weakened, but the effect on income growth among entrepreneurs is strengthened. We discuss the implications of our findings for theory and future research.
LAG3 is an inhibitory immune checkpoint expressed on activated T and NK cells. Blocking the interaction of LAG3 with its ligands MHC-II and FGL1 renders T cells improved cytotoxicity to cancer cells. ...Current study generated a panel of LAG3 monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) through immunization of mice followed by phage display. Some of them bound to the D1-D2 domain of LAG3, which is known for the engagement of its ligands FGL1 and MHC-II. Three outperformers, M208, M226, and M234, showed stronger blocking activity than Relatlimab in the FGL1 binding. Furthermore, M234 showed dual inhibition of FGL1 (IC50 of 20.6 nM) and MHC-II binding (IC50 of 6.2 nM) to LAG3. In vitro functional tests showed that M234 significantly stimulated IFN-γ secretion from activated PBMC cells. In vivo studies in a mouse model of hepatocellular carcinoma xenografts demonstrated that combining M234 IgG with GPC3-targeted bispecific antibodies significantly improved efficacy. In addition, GPC3-targeted CAR-T cells secreting IL-21-M234 scFv fusion protein exhibited enhanced activity in inhibiting tumor growth and greatly increased the survival rate of mice. Taken together, M234 has potential in cancer immunotherapy and warrants further clinical trial.
Display omitted
•LAG-3 antibodies, particularly M234, exhibit dual inhibition of FGL1 and MHC-II binding.•M234 stimulates IFN-γ secretion from activated PBMC cells.•Combining M234 with GPC3-targeted bispecific antibodies improves efficacy in hepatocellular carcinoma xenografts.•GPC3-targeted CAR-T cells secreting IL-21-M234 scFv fusion protein exhibited enhanced activity in inhibiting tumor growth.
The last two decades have witnessed a surge in interest in the smart-sustainable city, but it remains unclear how smart cities can achieve the multifaceted goals of sustainable development, such as ...ecological performance, human development and sustainability efficiency. This study performs a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) of 35 Chinese large smart cities through configurational theorizing of the smart-sustainable city nexus. The findings not only reveal the causal complexity of constructing smart cities to achieve urban sustainability, but also develop a taxonomy of smart city configurations leading to ecological performance or human development, namely, duplex-centric, eco-centric, human-centric and double-bind modes.
This study explores underdog entrepreneurship by investigating how economic poverty affects an individual’s entrepreneurial choice with varying levels of regional common prosperity. Using a sample of ...5,250 individual-year observations from nine provincial regions in rural China, we find that economic poverty is conducive to entrepreneurship. Moreover, our results show that the effect of economic poverty on the choice of entrepreneurship as a career is weakened by regional economic development but strengthened by regional income equality. Our study provides implications to enrich the discussion of common prosperity and extends existing literature on underdog entrepreneurship by considering unique aspects of regional contexts.
Nursery City Innovation: A CELL Framework Fan, Di; Su, Yiyi; Huang, Xinli
Public administration review,
July/August 2022, 2022-07-00, 20220701, Volume:
82, Issue:
4
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
How can innovative cities be cultivated and fertilized? Embracing and reframing insights from multidisciplinary academic discourse, we conceptualize three paired tensional dimensions, namely, the ...human‐society, the market‐government and the global–local tensions, to form a six‐I city innovation framework. Also termed a CELL framework, the six I‐related key elements are: human intelligence, societal incentives, government involvement, market inclination, global integration, and local interconnection. Taking a holistic view, the set of collective and interdependent institutional elements can serve to analyze the development of city innovation. The key assertion of the study is that a city's innovative ecosystem can be built up, and, more importantly, via configuring key institutional arrangements.
Advancing our understanding of political risks is crucial for international management (IM) research and practice. This study addresses how multiple institutional logics that govern multinational ...enterprises (MNEs), as latent tensions of political risks, may work together for superior or inferior performance. Methodologically, we adopt a configurational approach to predict how varying state logic and market logic combinations affect performance in the context of internationalization among Chinese financial services firms. Employing fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA), we identify a specific taxonomy of four political risk prototypes that lead to different performance outcomes. Overall, this study provides novel insights into political risk variations of internationalizing firms and links different institutional logic configurations with performance outcomes.
Received international business and international human resource management theories have generally reached a consensus on the important role of leader and top management teams (TMTs) in deciding and ...shaping the firm's internationalization process. However, what remains unclear is how a well-functioning TMT is formed to effectively achieve the desired internationalization goal. Utilizing a unique sample of Chinese banking and finance institutions' initial public offering overseas, this study explores how Chinese BFIs configure the leader-TMT dynamics to achieve high internationalization performance. Using a set-theoretic approach and the technique of fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis, a distinct taxonomy of the leader-TMT dynamics (namely, grass-root, strategic executor, born-global and glocal) is developed. Our findings provide novel insights into the IHRM variations within Chinese BFIs' TMT formation, based on a theoretically and methodologically extended leader-TMT dynamics perspective.
In a fast-changing world, strategic decisions to exit a foreign market become more complex for family firms, owing to their vulnerability to uncertainty in internationalization. However, there is ...scant research on family firms’ foreign market exit with respect to their responses to contextual influences from home and host countries. This study reconciles the socioemotional wealth (SEW) perspective and the friction lens to address this gap. Using a sample of 1,455 subsidiaries established by 413 Chinese family firms in 2009-2018, we find that historical military friction increases family firms’ foreign market exit, while cultural friction leads to a lower exit propensity. We also find that family management reinforces the friction-exit relationships, and this effect is strengthened when the family firm is controlled by the first generation. Our theory and related findings deepen our understanding of the foreign market exit decision of family firms while offering important theoretical and managerial implications.
•A measurement of global supply chain linkages is proposed in this study.•Different cluster linkages affect the expansion strategy of EMNEs.•Firm-cluster relatedness affects the firms’ engagement in ...global supply chains.•Engaging in global supply chains affects firm performance.•Institutional voids moderate the expansion-performance relationship.
The past two decades have witnessed the rapid penetration of emerging market multinational enterprises (EMNEs) into global production networks. Although existing literature documents the agglomeration effect of industrial clusters in affecting firms’ strategic decisions, less is known about how the heterogeneous cluster linkages at the national level affect the foreign market expansion of EMNEs. Based on a supply chain perspective, this study investigates the different cluster linkages between countries based on their upstream/downstream relations. We find that upstream–downstream (U-D) cluster linkages reduce the EMNEs’ expansionary entries into a foreign country, while the downstream-upstream (D-U) linkages lead to an increase in expansionary entries. These relationships are adversely moderated by firm-cluster relatedness. We also find that the expansionary entries of EMNEs positively affect their performance, and the relationship is moderated by the institutional environments in host countries. In summary, this study informs a more holistic understanding of the complexity of global production networks, considering the interplay between firms, clusters, and institutions.
PDF
