Rethinking the path of business research in the West: What direction is better for business research in China?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to make instrumental recommendations on how to conduct high-quality business-school research in China. Design/methodology/approach – This paper offers four fundamental questions to guide business-school research in China. Findings – By offering answers to these guidance questions, this paper hopes that business-school research in China will reject the single path of the natural-science model of basic research and choose to also travel the path of the professional-practice model of pragmatic research. Originality/value – The following is an edited version of Professor Allen S. Lee’s keynote address at the Fourth Symposium on Financial Intelligence and Risk Management and the Fifth International Workshop on Electronic Payment and Electronic Commerce in China (FIRM-EPECC 2012), on June 2, 2012, at the Sichuan Key Lab of Financial Intelligence and Financial Engineering (FIFE) of the Southwestern University of Finance of Economics (SWUFE), in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, People’s Republic of China.