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Purpose – This paper seeks to propose that practical wisdom originating within the Chinese classical traditions has been instrumental in China's ascendance to the world stage. Its purpose is to analyze biographical data across 200 Chinese business leaders in order to gauge the relative influence of two competing ideologies – Maoism and Confucianism. Design/methodology/approach – This paper is based on a two-step design process. First, modern day leadership archetypes characterizing Maoist and Confucian ideology were developed from the literature. Second, these archetypes were applied in the content analysis of biographical data on Chinese business leaders. Findings – There was evidence of both Maoism and Confucianism in the practices of Chinese business leaders. An unintended, third cohort of leaders emerged, representative of the younger end of the biographical distribution, who appear to embrace paradox in their ideological orientation. Practical implications – There were three practical implications for management and leadership development: the importance of integrating the concept of paradox into management and leadership development curricula; the provision of illustrative alternatives to western world leadership exemplars; and increased emphasis on global leadership as an emergent phenomenon with particular attention to the burgeoning internationalization of Chinese enterprise and its associated ideologies. Originality/value – The current leadership literature is dominated by western world exemplars. This paper offers an alternative view; one rich with the wisdom and classical traditions of the Chinese culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The primary purpose of the paper is to examine how religiosity influences ethical attitude towards business and to compare and contrast this relationship for two populous Asian countries: India and China. The socio-cultural setting of both the countries resonates strongly weaved religious values and traditional ideology, though with a disparate political system. Using Attitude towards Business Ethics Questionnaire (ATBEQ) and 10-item Religious Commitment Inventory (RCI-10), data from 231, i.e., n(India)=122 and n(China)=109, respondents is collected, and research variables are compared based on gender and country of origin. Men demonstrate a higher ethical attitude towards business, higher religiosity, and higher score on ethical business philosophies than their women counterparts. Additionally, Indians score significantly higher than the Chinese on the three constructs. The results of regression analysis demonstrate that religiosity influences ethical attitude towards business for men, women, and Indians only. The relationship is not supported for China. The study further deconstructs religiosity into two subscales: intra (inner interpretive understanding) and inter (outer demonstrative action) religiosity to examine their influence on ethical attitude towards business. Individuals with higher intrareligiosity have a higher ethical attitude while no such relationship is evidenced for interreligiosity. Even further, items of ATBEQ are mapped to represent four ethical business philosophies and their differences compared on the basis of sub-constructs of religiosity. Variations in ethical business philosophies are shown by intra-religiosity only. Essentially, it is not about preaching religion, it is about practicing a religion that really matters. Freedom to practice religion, religion-based teaching, and ethical values embedded into business practices could help shape new virtue ethics as an inspiring point of reference and guidance for business leaders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent years have witnessed the surging of Chinese manufacturers, as China has become the world’s factory floor. This paper presents a case study of one of the most successful manufacturers in China, the Galanz Group, now the world’s largest microwave manufacturer. Based on theories of multinational corporations from emerging economies, the paper examines the process of Galanz’s integration into the global market. The company has developed unique competitive strategies that have made it a great success within China and in overseas markets. The Galanz model suggests strong strategic implications for both Chinese firms and incumbent multinational corporations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using survey data of enterprises and entrepreneurs from Liuzhou, Guangxi, China, the determinants of political participation of private enterprises are studied. We find (1) entrepreneurs who are older or from larger older enterprises have a higher probability of becoming members of the People's Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, while gender, education and household registration status do not significantly affect their political participation. (2) Entrepreneurs with membership in the Communist Party of China or other parties have a higher probability of entering politics. Compared with Communist Party members, those of other parties have a much higher probability of political participation. (3) Parental leadership identity increases entrepreneur probability of entering politics. Its effect is between that of Communist Party membership and other party membership. This paper provides evidence that Chinese entrepreneurs in private enterprises are translating their economic power, political identity, and household background into formal political power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses in terms of transactions costs how foreign investors choose contractual forms. It argues that the unusually wide choice of contracts available in China can be shown roughly to correspond to varying degrees of within-firm governance. Other factors, particularly locational choice within China, contribute to reducing the scope for opportunism on the part of the host country where a well-enforced legal framework is lacking. Technology transfer is rendered more complex by the importance of team organization in the technology on offer from firms from Hong Kong, the largest foreign investor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the relationship between creativity and innovation in entrepreneurs, entrepreneurial firms, and their strategies in China. According to the authors, The combination of creativity and innovation embedded in the entrepreneurial process is fundamental to the discovery and establishment of new ways to organize production processes and to introduce new institutional forms. Creativity is broadly defined as the cognitive process by which individuals discover new patterns in familiar ideas, routines, and mental models.

Purpose Chinese firms were operating within a closed economic environment before the “opening up” in the late 1970s, but it has only been in the late 1990s that China has recognized the importance of innovation. The Chinese government has attempted to rectify this liability by providing funding to assist Chinese firms in developing innovation capability by increasing R&D collaborations and employing external experts. The purpose of this paper is to study the innovation of Chinese firms by examining how internal and external resources interactively impact the innovation capability.Design/methodology/approach Panel data collected from Chinese manufacturers are used to test the hypothesized relationships.Findings The results have shown that the interplay between internal and external resources exhibits differential patterns of impact on innovation capability. The authors discover different moderating patterns of the two types of external resources: visiting experts are helpful in enhancing the effects of internal human resources, while R&D collaborations are useful in exploiting internal financial and physical resources, even when the main effect of financial resources on innovation capability is not significant.Originality/value The study contributes to the literature by providing empirical evidences on the roles of absorbed external resources and knowledge to catalyze internal resources in building up innovation capability in an emerging economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the political campaigns launched by the Chinese Communist Party in the Maoist period, full mobilisation of the masses became the norm. Yet it was not just the authorities and their myriads of units and personnel who became involved. In order to achieve maximum impact, the CCP targeted and mobilised the families of the actors concerned. This paper examines the strategy and measures implemented by the CCP during the Five Antis Movement to manipulate the wives and children of businessmen and merchants and to use them as leverage in pressing businessmen and merchants to ' confess' and reveal their alleged wrongdoings in business deals with the state. Although most chose to resist and to side with their husband or father, political pressure was strong enough to force family members to become the instruments of power within the family. While the actual overall cost is impossible to evaluate, enlisting family members into political struggle left a legacy of distrust and uncertainty, which in turn dealt a serious blow to family ethics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper provides, for the first time, empirical evidence on the impact of economic freedom on bank efficiency in a developing economy. We employ the Data Envelopment Analysis method to compute the efficiency of the Chinese banking sector during 2000-2008. The empirical findings indicate that the inefficiency of the Chinese banking sector stems largely from scale rather than pure technical. By examining different dimensions of economic freedom, we find that not all are equally regressive on bank efficiency. We find that the impact of business freedom to be positive, implying that higher (lower) freedom for entrepreneurs to start businesses increases (reduces) bank efficiency. Similarly, monetary freedom is positively related to bank efficiency levels, indicating the importance of a stable and reliable monetary policy to business environment. On the other hand, the impact of financial freedom is negative, implying that higher (lower) financial freedom reduces (increases) the efficiency of banks operating in the Chinese banking sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the beneficial impacts of supplier and customer integration are generally acknowledged, very few empirical research studies have examined how an organization can achieve better product performance through product innovation enhanced by such integration. This paper thus examines the impact of key supplier and customer integration processes (i.e., information sharing and product codevelopment with supplier and customer, respectively) on product innovation as well as their impact on product performance. It contributes to existing literature by asking how such integration activities affect product innovation and performance in both direct and indirect ways. After surveying 251 manufacturers in Hong Kong, this study tested the relationships among information sharing, product codevelopment, product innovativeness, and performance with three control variables (i.e., company size, type of industry, and market certainty). Structural equation modeling with correlation and t-tests was used to test the hypothesized research model. The findings indicate a direct, positive relationship between supplier and customer integration and product performance. In particular, this study verifies that sharing information with suppliers and product codevelopment with customers directly improves product performance. In addition, this study empirically examines the indirect effects of supplier and customer integration processes on product performance, mediated by innovation. This has seldom been attempted in previous research. The empirical findings show that product codevelopment with suppliers improves performance, mediated by innovation. However, the sampled firms cannot improve their product innovation by sharing information with their current customers and suppliers as well as codeveloping new products with the customers. If the adoption of supplier and customer integration is not cost free, the findings of this study may suggest firms work on particular supplier and customer integration processes (i.e., product codevelopment with suppliers) to improve their product innovation. The study also suggests that companies codevelop new products only with new customers and lead users instead of current ones for product innovation. For managers, this study has demonstrated that both information sharing and product codevelopment affect performance directly and indirectly. Managers should put more emphasis on these key processes, especially when linked with product innovation. Managers should consider involving their suppliers and customers in the early stages of design. Information sharing with suppliers is also important in product development. As suggested by this study, extensive effort on supplier and customer integration should be made to directly augment current product performance and product innovation at the same time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper reports on a research project on "the status and understanding of business ethics in contemporary China". The project was funded by The British Council and conducted by means of visits to Chinese companies, Ministries and Universities, in preparation for a seminar which was held in Beijing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the new measurement of launching online distribution channels of tobacco enterprises in China, this paper investigates the tobacco firm’s pricing decisions on the supply chain which consists of two manufacturers and one retailer under three dual-channel structures. Three dual-channel structures include no online channel, only one online channel by one manufacture, and two online channels by two manufacturers. We apply the Stackelberg game to analyze the equilibrium pricing strategies under different structures and try to explore the necessity and advantages of launching online sales channels. The results demonstrate that the substitutability of a product has significant impact on introducing online sales channels, and the online dual-channel structure could result in less profit for manufacturers compared to the traditional retail channel structure; and thus, a dual-channel structure with online sales is not the best strategy for traditional manufacturers. Moreover, when the product is less substitutable, the effect of the tobacco control on the online sales channel is inferior to the traditional channels and vice versa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: There are two types of the structure of supply chain upstream pig in mainland China. The first one is distribution channel model, a businessman and pig raiser and piglets, also called the traditional mode supplier. The second one is to direct model, the pig raiser vendor selling directly, and that large-scale cultivation mode. This paper analyzes two transactions attribute in three aspects: the asset specificity, transaction frequency, and uncertainty in exchange. Then, establish the transaction cost functions as parameters, and compared their trade between the scale of the structure of the transaction cost types upstream. The conclusion is that the expansion of the scale of and cultivation, the structure of the supply chain upstream pigs are changing, from the distribution channel mode, with direct sales model. Finally, a numerical example shows that this method with the conclusion. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The article shares information about the bodies of Chinese women in special economic zones (SEZs) in China. It also discusses on sexually oriented places as subjects of transnational masculine pleasure and comfort for businessmen in China that have Taiwanese origins. Meanings and importances of the term sexual "play" among Taiwanese businessmen in transnational and domestic settings are also presented, as well as the particularity of sexualised masculine "play" among the businessmen in the Chinese SEZs.

Nearly a century ago, Max Weber studied Chinese lineage system and argued that the power of the patriarchal sib impeded the emergence of industrial capitalism in China Recently, Martin Whyte re-evaluated Weber `s thesis on the basis of development studies and argued that, rather than an obstacle, Chinese family pattern and lineage ties may have facilitated the economic growth in China since the 1980s. This paper empirically tests the competing hypotheses by focusing on the relationship between lineage networks and the development of rural enterprises. Analyses of village-level data show that lineage networks, measured by proportion of most common surnames, have large positive effects on the count of entrepreneurs and total workforce size of private enterprises in rural China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to throw light on Hong Kong Chinese entrepreneurs' perceptions of the likely risks and opportunities posed by the People's Republic of China's resumption of sovereignty over Hong Kong in 1997. A content-analysis of thirty-two interviews suggests that memories of unfavorable experiences in the past has not affected their perceptions of future political risks. There seems to be a convergent optimism regarding financial opportunities for Hong Kong business and the manifest political and economic problems are seen by the entrepreneurs merely as temporary setbacks on the road to improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on resource-based view (RBV), this study examines the impact of marketing-related resource (market orientation) and innovation-related resources (innovation orientation and innovation resources) on exporters' performance (new product performance and overall export performance), as well as moderating role of environmental turbulence in the market orientation and export performance link. The questionnaire survey conducted among 220 manufacturing exporters reveals that there exist positive relationships among the constructs in question. This research departs from the majority of past research investigating the relationship among market orientation, product innovation and business performance in three aspects: (1) it examines the impact mechanism how market orientation improves new product performance and export performance through innovation orientation and innovation resources based on RBV, (2) it distinguishes among three constructs involved in product innovation activity, and (3) it extends the research from domestic markets to export markets. We conclude by discussing our contributions, the implications, and possible future extensions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the mid-nineteenth century, a group of overseas Chinese businessmen created a private international remittance network linking the southeastern littoral zone of the Qing empire with the colonies of mainland and archipelagic Southeast Asia. Holding together this transnational network were Qiaopiju remittance firms that succeeded in controlling the remittance trade not by relying on traditional forms of economic organization or behavior, but by pioneering a unique combination of capitalist profit-making strategies, culturalist customer services, and flexible interfirm relations. The organizational structure and business practices of Qiaopiju allowed them to successfully adapt to and negotiate with the emerging regulatory regimes of the nation-state, colonial, and capitalist world systems in order to dominate the international remittance industry for more than a century. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article offers information on the report of business journalist William Holstein titled "China's Long Road to Innovation" published in the "strategy + business: Leading Ideas On Line." He stated in this report that Chinese companies experience difficulties in competing technologically despite China's efforts to increase local research and development (R&D). He believes that Chinese entrepreneurs and companies can compete with the Japanese and South Korean innovators.

Chinese overseas investment is a new, and growing phenomenon. In the last decade, there have been exponential increases in how much direct investment is flowing from China, particularly into the resource sector. As the eurozone crisis has deepened since 2008, there has been continuing talk by political and business leaders of investment in Europe being a key target for Chinese companies. And yet, the amounts invested so far come to less than 5 percent of China's global overseas foreign direct investment (FDI) total. In the crucial determinants of Chinese FDI, the EU ranks low. There is therefore a good structural reason why, despite the ambitious talk of the Chinese coming to invest more in vital sectors in the EU, this is not happening at the moment and is not likely to happen until China develops into a middle income, more developed economy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Purpose - This study aims to investigate differences among Chinese manufacturers-cum-suppliers in their logistics services provided to different local and foreign customers and assess the management areas that they must address in order to satisfy the logistics requirements of their customers. Design/methodology/approach - A questionnaire-based survey was conducted amongst managers of manufacturing firms in four industries, automotive, telecommunication and computer, household appliance, and electronics, located in the Shanghai region of China. A five-point Likert scale (1 - least important, 5 - most important) was used to measure the importance of services provided, and assess customer satisfaction level, impact on management of manufacturers, and difficulties and challenges faced by the manufacturers. Findings - The results indicate that foreign customers place significant emphasis on different services from those of their local counterparts. Results also indicate that many challenges need to be addressed by the manufacturers with respect to HR, customer service, and IT integration. A significant difference between manufacturers'' satisfaction levels with local and foreign customers is also noticeable. Practical implications - Since third-party logistics (3PL) industry in China is still in its infancy. Most of the Chinese manufacturing firms have to provide major logistics services to their customers. Hence further growth of the Chinese economy depends to a large extent on the ability of the manufacturing firms to provide efficient and effective logistics services. The findings of this study demonstrate that in order for the outsourced manufacturers in China to provide logistics services to local and foreign customers, they are required to restructure their organizations and adjust their operation strategies. Originality/value - This study is a rare attempt to discuss outsourced manufacturers in China in adjusting their logistics strategies and operations to meet the demands from both local and foreign customers after China''s admission to the World Trade Organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors present a model that explains how comprehensive social competency (made up of three components - social skills, proactive and elaborate social strategies, and relational perseverance) is related to business people's network development, and how social networks in turn are related to business growth. We conducted two studies with Chinese small business owners, - one in the capital city Beijing (N = 133) and a second one in the less developed rural region of Xunyi (N = 78). Comprehensive social competency was consistently related to network size and business growth. In addition, government network size was related to the business growth since start-up in both studies (employee growth in Study 1 and personal asset growth in Study 2), but business network size was not related to business growth. Government network size also functions as a partial mediator between comprehensive social competency and business growth since start-up. Some differences are found between the rural area and the urban centre. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents views of successful Chinese business executives and also discusses ways to promote an expanded two-way dialog between Chinese and Western leaders. It explains the similarities and differences of Western and Chinese business practices. The relationship between business and government in China has been very different due to the tradition of state-owned enterprises. Executive Wang Xiancheng presented his views on effective leadership and management practices. Wang Weicheng informed about the new energy legislation for China. The authors found that despite the differences, there are profound lessons for the West from the Chinese.

Chinese privately owned, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are rapidly internationalizing, yet little research has been reported about how these entrepreneurs manage decisions during internationalization. This study investigates how social networks (guanxi) are used when making strategic, competitive, and marketing decisions. Interviews in China with a small sample of SME entrepreneurs revealed that cultural and ethnic factors play a surprisingly important role in their successful internationalization. In the article, we discuss managerial implications for successful internationalization of Chinese entrepreneurs, we question the completeness of current theories on the internationalization process, and we propose specific directions for future research. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Manuscript Type: Empirical Research Question/Issue: Numerous studies demonstrate that audit opinions provide strong signals to investors/debt holders warning of firms’ default probability. When foreign investors were allowed to enter the Chinese stock market, the role of audit opinions grew in importance. In this study, we examine the relationships between audit opinions and default probability within the Chinese stock market, and explore whether there was any significant shift in this relationship following the entry of Qualified Foreign Institutional Investors (QFIIs). Research Findings/Insights: We find that audit opinions began providing signals of potential default risk only after QFIIs entered the market; suggesting that in the post-December 2002 period, auditors’ decisions in China became more conservative, and that institutional investors began to play a monitoring role. Theoretical/Academic Implications: This study provides support for institutional theory through the provision of empirical evidence showing that audit opinions, as signals of potential default risk, may actually be less efficient in immature markets than in more mature markets. Furthermore, the role of audit opinions in providing such signals to outside investors can clearly be affected by the introduction of new monitoring mechanisms. The results imply that market maturity could prompt firms to provide more accurate information. Practitioner/Policy Implications: The strengthening of security laws could increase confidence among investors in China, thereby providing evidence to market participants showing that the more accurate information and greater efficiency of audit opinions, arising as a direct result of the entry of QFIIs, could lead to expansion of the Chinese investment environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Known as "Mr. Money" and "Superman" in Hong Kong and Asia, Li Ka-shing epitomizes China's spectacular rise from a moribund communist state to a free market colossus. One year after Deng Xiaoping launched his modernization process in 1978, Li purchased a British firm in Hong Kong called Hutchison Whampoa. From then on, his ability to create wealth globally exploded exponentially. Using a case study approach, the author analyzes Li's systematic rise from poverty and life as a plastic flower salesman to one of the world's richest individuals with investments in banks, container ports, digital and traditional media, energy, property, and retail. What emerges from this article is an entrepreneur so skilled in reading the market, so astute in hiring talent, so bold in creating and divesting investments, so Chinese in his business values, and so loyal in bringing friends into his financial arena that creating wealth seemed almost like an after-thought. Yet for his sons, Victor and Richard, the challenge is to equal or surpass their father. To know why and how Li Ka-shing became wealthy is to know why China is such a commercial success today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Credited as a pioneer for introducing hotel franchising into Hong Kong in the early 1980s, Che-woo Lui, among others, observed and contributed to the substantial growth of the hotel industry in Hong Kong for more than 25 years. Lui, a man with vision and determination, is a rote model who rose from rags to riches to become a successful businessman. This article introduces how this entrepreneur started and succeeded in the business world and his contribution to the Hong Kong hotel industry and to hospitality education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China rewards Mainlanders with technology who return to China. Among entrepreneurs and scientists, technology is generating today's reverse migration as the rewards for bringing back technology are significant. Many returnees do not bring the latest international technology; technology that is new for China suffices to create a comparative advantage in the domestic market, making the transfer of technology a key strategy for becoming a successful reverse migrant. This article shows statistically that those who said that they had returned because they possessed a new technology (55% of our sample) were less likely to have a new international technology than a technology that was new only for China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study addresses normative, social and cognitive factors related to the interest in becoming an entrepreneur in China, Vietnam, and the Philippines. The study's findings are based on surveys of 782 business students in these countries. A rather consistent pattern of country differences was found on most of the measures, which may reflect differences in the historical, cultural, economic and political contexts of these nations. The results of this study emphasize the importance of developing both self-efficacy and close social supports in enhancing potential for entrepreneurial activity in these countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do institutional entrepreneurs craft new organizational forms under unstable conditions, especially when all of the relevant organizational models have serious liabilities in terms of legitimacy? Previous literature argues that emergent organizational models must adopt existing organizational elements in order to solve three problems: (1) gaining access to resources, (2) exploiting previous competencies, and (3) demonstrating legitimacy to salient audiences. Yet, these three distinct needs often require very different organizational elements associated with diverse, contradictory moral logics. This article, which examines the case of for-profit ventures started by Chinese state organizations in the 1990s, reveals one strategy that entrepreneurs can use to solve this problem—to deliberately increase ambiguity about the organization's central characteristics and its underlying moral logic. This strategy makes it possible for new organizations to solve the problems of resources, competency, and legitimacy by simultaneously adopting (and adapting) contradictory organizational elements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a study of five entrepreneurs operating their business first in Hong Kong and later in the PRC, we examine the modes of entrepreneurship from the Kirznerian and Schumpeterian perspectives. The results showed that these entrepreneurs appeared basically Kirznerian in their strategy when their business focuses were in Hong Kong, and shifted toward a blend of the Kirznerian and Schumpterian modes when operating their businesses in the PRC. Such a shift can be explained by the adaptation of their competencies to the PRC context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the effect of entrepreneurs' social capital on investment decisions of venture capitalists. The empirical data is composed of 158 venture capital decisions in the People's Republic of China. We found that entrepreneurs' social capital has significant effects on investment selection decisions of venture capitalists in interaction with growth potential and technology/products of the venture. We also found that strong ties between entrepreneurs and venture capitalists have significant direct effects on investment process decisions such as contractual covenants, investment delivery, and venture valuation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Export channels into emerging markets differ markedly in channel intensity. This inductive study of 18 British manufacturers and their Chinese intermediaries led to propositions exploring the mechanism behind the marked differences. Findings from the study indicate that low channel intensity may restrict exporting manufacturers' market coverage and expose them to high risks of intermediary opportunism in emerging markets where channel environments are highly uncertain and legal frameworks are weak. However, low channel intensity policy can be an appropriate option when exporting manufacturers face the threats of gray marketing and fake products.

This article summarizes the entrepreneurial patterns in the transition economies, particularly Russia, China, Poland and Vietnam. All the transition economies, from the Soviet Union and central and eastern Europe, to China and Vietnam, were similar in one important respect, their planned economies has been dominated by large firms, producing few consumer goods. Some governments actively made it hard for entrepreneurs to operate. The government's decisions on privatizing state firms may also have affected the environment for new firms. Four transition countries, Poland, Russia, China and Vietnam, span the range of entrepreneurship patterns. In the early years of economic transition, the absence of credit markets, courts and other market institutions created substantial impediments to entry. Other circumstances of the transition aided informal contracting. Cooperation is easier to sustain when reserving the relationship results in higher cost. Cooperation is more easily sustained, also, if punishment for malfeasance comes not only from the trading partner who has been cheated but also from other firms in the community. The importance of entrepreneurs in the transition economies is a reminder that the task of economic transition is not just a matter of government officials enacting certain policies or setting certain rules of operation for the new economy.

The economic reforms in contemporary Chinese society entail two transitions: firstly. societal structure transition, shifting from an agrarian, rural, closed or half-closed traditional society to industrial, urban, open modern society; secondly, economic institutional transition, shifting from a highly centralized plan-oriented economy to a mixed socialist oriented economy. The emergence of private business and private entrepreneurship is the direct result of the transitions. On the one hand, the transition has resulted in the appearance of the private sector in contemporary society and has transformed the previous Chinese social structure. On the other hand, private enterprise has accelerated the very process of transition. The private sector has played a key role both in Chinese economic growth and in economic and political reforms. Private business has drawn the attention of both Chinese and Western scholars. The author contributes to this research by examining urban private enterprise and urban private entrepreneurship in Chinese transitional society in terms of their development, performance and trends.

Focuses on a study which examined from the perspective of economic theory the role of middlemen in bringing about economic efficiency in Hong Kong, China. Assumptions on the important features of an economic system in which middleman trade is carried out; Details on a model for the middleman economy; Relevance of the model and its results for China and Hong Kong in the wake of reunification.

This article presents an interview with the ex-president and general manager of Hainan Fuda Electric Magnetic Co. The first question asked was abut himself, in response he replied that he was grew up in a large city in Jiangsu Province. His father is a retired army general, and he was raised in a military compound. Unlike many entrepreneurs of his age who were from humble backgrounds and had hard experience, he lived a comfortable life and never had to worry about money and respect. He graduated from a prestigious university in 1982 and got a job with a government agency. Most of the time, there was really nothing to do. He spent most of the time drinking tea, reading newspapers and magazines, and chatting with my colleagues. On a question about his business, he replied that the local government awarded him the lease because of his ability to make deals. When he leased the company, it was near bankruptcy. They could not even pay their employees. He fired most of the people to cut costs, and the local government helped some of them find other jobs. Still, he was the most hated person at the time. He even lived in a hotel owned by the military because some people threatened to kill him.

Discusses the implications of the rise of cadre entrepreneurs in China. Engagement in business activities both as a way to survive administrative reforms in the civil service and as a means to get rich; Institutional pressures for self-adjustment; Concerns of cadre entrepreneurs about possible policy changes in the country; Market uncertainty in China.