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PR executive at Chinese tech firm Baidu apologizes for comments seen as glorifying overwork

FILE - An attendee walks past a display at the Baidu World conference in Beijing, on Nov. 1, 2018. A top public relations executive from Chinese technology firm Baidu apologized Thursday, May 9, 2024, after she made comments in a series of videos that critics said glorified a culture of overwork. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)

FILE - An attendee walks past a display at the Baidu World conference in Beijing, on Nov. 1, 2018. A top public relations executive from Chinese technology firm Baidu apologized Thursday, May 9, 2024, after she made comments in a series of videos that critics said glorified a culture of overwork. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)

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HONG KONG (AP) — A top public relations executive from Chinese technology firm Baidu apologized Thursday after she made comments in a series of videos that critics said glorified a culture of overwork.

Baidu’s head of communications Qu Jing sparked a public outcry in China after she implied in the videos that she was not concerned about her employees as she was “not their mom” and said she only cared about results. She also said that the relationship between her and her subordinates was purely an “employer-employee relationship.”

The backlash was swift, with many on social media platforms like Weibo criticizing Qu for her lack of empathy.

Qu posted an apology Thursday on her private WeChat account, where she “sincerely apologized to all netizens” and clarified that she had not sought Baidu’s permission before posting the videos.

Qu said that her short videos did not represent Baidu’s stance. Baidu operates China’s dominant search engine as well as Ernie Bot, an artificial intelligence service similar to ChatGPT.

“Many of the criticisms are very pertinent, I am reflecting deeply and humbly accept them,” she said. “There are many inappropriate (things said) in the video that caused external misunderstandings about the company’s values and corporate culture, causing serious harm. I sincerely apologize.”

FILE - An attendee walks past a display at the Baidu World conference in Beijing, on Nov. 1, 2018. A top public relations executive from Chinese technology firm Baidu apologized Thursday, May 9, 2024, after she made comments in a series of videos that critics said glorified a culture of overwork. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)

Qu also pledged to improve her communication and management style and care more for her colleagues.

Baidu did not immediately comment.

Chinese online media outlet 36Kr reported Thursday that Qu had left her position at Baidu. The Associated Press was not able to independently verify Qu’s departure.

The videos, which have since be taken down, came at a time when many young people in China are pushing back against a culture of competition and grueling hours in the workplace.

Qu received criticism for a range of subjects she mentioned in the series of short videos on Douyin.

In the series, she brought up an incident of certain employees who sent hundreds of complaint letters against her to the office, and threatened to ruin their careers by ensuring that they could never again find a job in the industry.

In one of the videos, she criticized an employee who refused to go on a 50-day business trip during the COVID-19 pandemic. China had implemented strict travel restrictions that at times included weeks of quarantine for travel even within the country.

“Why should I take into consideration my employee’s family? I’m not her mother-in law,” Qu said, adding that if employees refused to go on such business trips then they would not get salary raises or job promotions.

Chinese technology firms have long been criticized for their long working hours.

A public debate was sparked in recent years over the “996” work culture, where employees in technology firms were expected to work from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week. The issue was also spotlighted after the deaths of two employees of Chinese e-commerce firm Pinduoduo, one of whom collapsed suddenly on the street on her way home from work.

Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba, also faced criticism in 2019 for endorsing the 12-hour workday culture, saying that those who enjoyed their work would not find the “996” practice to be a problem.

dissertation on family firms

Research on family firms – Definition, theories, and performance

  • First Online: 01 January 2013

Cite this chapter

dissertation on family firms

  • Nils Kraiczy 2  

Part of the book series: Familienunternehmen und KMU ((KMU))

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This chapter gives a brief overview of the main problems of family business research and offers basic information regarding family firms for a general understanding of the research field. One main issue is the question “What is a family business by definition?” In section 2.1, I briefly discuss alternative definitions of family firms that have been used in previous studies, and show how family firms are defined in this dissertation. Further, I present theories that help explain the differences between family and non-family firms (section 2.2). The chapter closes with a literature review of the performance differences between family and non-family firms and the related shortcomings (section 2.3).

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Kraiczy, N. (2013). Research on family firms – Definition, theories, and performance. In: Innovations in Small and Medium-Sized Family Firms. Familienunternehmen und KMU. Springer Gabler, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-00063-9_2

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    The dissertation examines corporate performance and capital structure of family firms, contributing to the limited empirical research on family firms. Family firms are prevalent in national economies all over the world. It is the prevalence that makes family firms receive increasing attentions from academia.

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    The percentage of these enterprises owned by a family range from 8.78% to 81.03%, with an average of 35.08%. At 19.35% of these businesses, family ownership is 51% or more. Enterprises with a family ownership rate of 30% or more account for 52.04% of these businesses.

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    family control decline, thus benefits are most visible in non-majority family firms. Also, if the family firm does systematically yield superior performance results, it should theoretically outnumber other types of corporations, which is in reality not the case. Therefore, Miller et al. 2007 focused on what could cause this puzzle.

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    Family businesses represent the oldest type of commercial organisation and are now the key driver of wealth creation in both emerging and developed economies (Dana and Ramadani,2015; Harris et al., 2004; Ingram and Glód, 2018, Ramadani et al., 2020).Family businesses are those businesses at least 50% owned by a single family, a definition we adopt to define a family business.

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    Contributors: Raphael Amit & Belén Villalonga Edited by: Leif Melin, Mattias Nordqvist & Pramodita Sharma Book Title: The SAGE Handbook of Family Business Chapter Title: "Financial Performance of Family Firms" Pub. Date: 2014 Access Date: March 27, 2020 Publishing Company: SAGE Publications Ltd City: London Print ISBN: 9780857023636 Online ...

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    The author defined a model to conceptualize family firms' performances based on two primary dimensions: the family and the business. At any stage of its existence, the family company's performance is defined as a high performance in its family and business dimensions. This is depicted in Fig. 2.5. Fig. 2.5.

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    Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies Collection 2021 Succession Planning Strategies Within Family Firms Brent Alan Muckridge ... family firm owners, and even fewer survive the transfer between subsequent generations (Porfírio et al., 2020). The general business problem was that family firm owners ...

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    to the next generation, 3) family firm behavior, and 4) distinctive familiness. In order to identify a firm as a family firm these characteristics are required. In this dissertation, I follow the essence approach by Chua et al. (1999, p. 25) in defining a family firm as "a business governed and/or managed with the intention to shape

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    directors). Family firm status in measured by being either a family firm or a non-family firm based on the percentage of ownership. R&D expenses are measured as a percentage of the total operating revenues of the firm. Results confirm the risks averse nature of family firms and show that family firms invest less in R&D than their non-family ...

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    After that, family constitutions are located within the governance framework for family firms (Section 1.4). Finally, family constitutions and their potential legal implications are analyzed more closely in the light of German company and contract law (Section 1.5). 1.2. Family Firms and Legal Forms.

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    Although the study of family firm internationalization has generated considerable scholarly attention, existing research has offered varied and at times incompatible findings on how family ownership and management shape internationalization. To improve our understanding of family firm internationalization, we systematically review 220 conceptual and empirical studies published over the past ...

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    In section 2.1, I briefly discuss alternative definitions of family firms that have been used in previous studies, and show how family firms are defined in this dissertation. Further, I present theories that help explain the differences between family and non-family firms (section 2.2).

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