抄録
This paper tries to explore the meaning of decentralized decision making practices by leaders in Chinese State-Owned Corporations (SOCs) and its relationship with corporate performance. As a result of sixteen years reform efforts, the management practices have been improved, due to the increased quality of the top managers in SOCs. The percentage of college graduates among top managers is 75% based for the sample of this study. Reforms have given more power to the top managers than before. Now, it enables them to contorl corporations more freely. However, the middle and lower-middle managers perceive that superiors hold too much power in their hands, as they seem to rely on centralized leadership style in the process of decision making. It was found that in the successful SOCs, managers seem to employ participative decision making practices under the decentralized leaders more often than those in the average perfoming SOCs. Moreover, it was found that managers at lower-middle positions working for the high performing SOCs are enjoying more participation and the higher quality leader-member exchange relations than other managers. This suggests that participation of young managers belonging to the After-Cultural Revolution generation, is one of the features of high performing SOCs in China.
