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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the link between culture, history, government policies and the development of economic institutions. Specifically, the paper discusses the impact that history and culture, including the influence of Confucianism, have played in shaping the economic institutions of South Korea and the People's Republic of China. Research results indicate that culture, history and government policies all played a role in shaping the organizational structure of these two East Asian nations. However, China's economic landscape is dominated by small and medium-sized, family-oriented firms, particularly in the rural parts of the country. The South Korean economic landscape, on the other hand, is dominated by large conglomerate firms called Chaebols which are also dominated by one family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Set against the background of China's changing economy and its rapid rise as a major tourism provider, this paper examines the development of tourism, and tourism policies, in Kanas (Xinjiang), an ethnic inhabited scenic area in north-western China which has seen visitor numbers rise from c. 800 to c. 1 million annually from 1990 to 2013. It uses the first four stages of Butler's Tourism Area Life Cycle model (TALC) as a framework, analysing governments' role in policy-making and implementation, and the tensions and conflicts at each TALC stage. It finds that the TALC is a useful analytical framework in China, despite its command economy, and governments' multiple roles in tourism development. The position of cultural heritage and the characteristics of the Tuva and Kazakh ethnic minority peoples in tourism in Kanas are critically examined, as is China's concept of social harmony and progress. Social harmony is compared - and contrasted - with the emerging concept of the Just Destination in destination planning and management. The minorities are found to be weak in knowledge, capital and bargaining power, but the relationships involved are complex and still evolving. The paper is one of a JOST series on China's new tourism management policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the design dimension of China's legal planning framework. It aims to identify the design principles which have been followed in practice, those design elements which have been considered by designers and planners as part of development control, and the extent to which urban design outcomes have been adopted in specific legal plans. It examines 14 urban design cases from Nanjing which were produced in conjunction with the relevant legal plans between 2009 and 2013. The study suggests that in China, urban design has been facing a number of challenges, including limited coverage of design elements, inconsistencies in the design principles followed, an incompatibility between design outcomes and legal plans, and an underestimation of the role of urban design in the delivery process of development control. Nevertheless, recent years have seen a rise in the standard of urban design practice in the country, and an emerging recognition of the role of urban design in local planning policies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Theory-driven and theory-based studies on innovation in China are relatively scarce. Most innovation studies about Chinese business are based on Chinese policy and government programmes and their results. This special issue ofTechnology AnalysisandStrategic Managementexplores China's indigenous innovation strategy and suggests a research agenda that focuses on Chinese innovation theory building that incorporates China's efforts to move towards an innovation-based economy. Currently, China is developing its indigenous innovation capabilities (The Chinese term is 自主创新, pronounced zizhu chuangxin). We suggest that innovation studies of Chinese business could focus on these indigenous innovation ambitions. In addition to this, it could adopt, and be embedded in a Chinese theory of innovation instead of a traditional Western-centric theory of innovation. Our proposition is that to better understand Chinese indigenous innovation, a new paradigm of Chinese innovation should be developed. We therefore present a research agenda that can be a starting point for the development of such a theory, and present seven papers in this special issue that give content to this idea. Obviously no theory will have a monopoly on exploring Chinese innovation phenomena, but it is interesting to add a Chinese-centric view into the Western-centric scholarly view. We hope that will be one of the contributions of this special issue on innovation in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sketches a picture, with broad strokes on a wide canvas, of thinking about, and outcomes in, development during the second half of the 20th Century, to stress the importance of learning and “unlearning” from experience. In doing so, it questions the caricature distinctions between success and failure at development, in a world where outcomes were mixed. This is illustrated vividly by a tale of two countries: China and India. In this time span, thinking about development witnessed a complete swing of the pendulum, from the Development Consensus to the Washington Consensus. These shifts in paradigm, which reshaped strategies of development, were influenced strongly by history and conjuncture, reinforced by the dominant political ideology of the times. However, changes in development strategies did not lead to the expected outcomes. In fact, there was a discernible mismatch between turning points in thinking and performance. Of course, experience of the past 50 years did lead to some rethinking about development. This learning from experience, however, was selective; and it differed across schools of thought, for it was shaped only in part by outcomes. It was also influenced significantly by priors in thinking and ideology in perspectives. Thus, attempts to unlearn from development, which questioned beliefs or changed previous beliefs embedded in ideologies, were few and far between. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]