Papers presented by Ganlin Li since 2019

2025 Atlanta, Georgia

"Behaving Like Sages: How Good-ark Strategically Use Religious Beliefs to Give Meanings to Entrepreneurial Activities"

Abstract:

Expanding non-family employee bases poses great challenges for family businesses that go beyond simple economic concerns. This study joins the recent conversations in understanding the influence of religious beliefs in entrepreneurship research by investigating a renowned Chinese technological family business, Good-Ark. Adopting a rhetorical history lens and incorporating interviews, observations, and documentation, we primarily find that the founder established a comprehensive belief system that reinforces family ownership and promotes organizational identification among employees. This is achieved through orchestrating beliefs, religionizing entrepreneurial activities, and familizing non-family employees. The research aim to advance the emerging conversation of religious study in entrepreneurship by revealing the strategic use of religious beliefs and discussing their moral implications.

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