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China's environmental crackdowns under Xi Jinping have led to a sweeping shutdown of private enterprises. To circumvent this, enterprises have developed different survival strategies including direct lobbying to government officials and indirect lobbying through business associations. Based on comparative case studies of environmental lobbying in Chinese cities, our research finds that larger enterprises, enjoying more economic leverage, tend to lobby directly using their own political connections to sway environmental enforcement. By contrast, smaller enterprises are excluded from these clientelist networks and have to lobby through business associations, the effectiveness of which hinges on the support of large enterprises. Therefore, we argue that although the Chinese government's increasingly stringent environmental policies have shrunk the lobbying (and living) space for private enterprises, the existence of environmental clientelism protects economically powerful and politically connected private enterprises but sacrifices the others in the implementation of environmental policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Party branches embedded in private enterprises are a unique phenomenon in the Chinese economy, but few studies have focused on the economic consequences. We hope to explore the impact of party branches on small and medium-sized private enterprises' corporate social responsibility (CSR) in China in order to fill the gaps in current research. Methods: Data were used from the 11th Chinese Private Enterprise Survey (CPES) in 2014. The study uses the methodology of fixed effect model, mediation analysis and moderation analysis. Moreover, propensity score matching and Heckman two-step method deal with the endogeneity problem and check the robustness of the results. Results: We find that, first, the embedding of party branches will improve the CSR performance of private enterprises in various dimensions by enhancing the perception of private enterprises in policy; second, in various influence pathways, the party branches will enhance the perceptions of policy related to economic interests, which has a more significant impact on enhancing the performance of philanthropic CSR. Further research reveals that business owners' first-given and later-generated political connections support the party branches' perception of policies related to economic and social interests, respectively. Discussion: The findings suggest that political intervention by China's ruling party in private firms promotes CSR performance, but this is influenced by the political connections of the firm owners. In addition to providing empirical support for the study of corporate behavior in the Chinese context, this paper identifies the impact and development trajectory of the party branches of China's ruling party on CSR. However, this paper does not discuss the implicit costs required for party branches to promote CSR, and we hope that future research will make further explorations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines state-private firm coordination in China's corporate globalization with a focus on cross-border mergers and acquisitions in Southeast Asia. The profile of China's private firms in the country's overseas economic expansion has risen dramatically over the past few years, but the controversy continues as to what extent they coordinate their overseas activities with the state. This is because Chinese private firms, not unlike state-owned enterprises, have political economy reasons to subject their corporate decision-making to state preferences. Still, the outcomes of state-firm coordination in private sector internationalization vary. In some transactions, the state and private firms form a strong partnership through elaborate policies and financing; others see some alignment that is not decisive for transaction outcomes; and still others see minimal, almost rhetorical engagement. The varied outcomes can be explained by the combination of foreign direct investment (FDI) motives and the technology intensity of the target industry. We propose a framework drawn from the international business theory of FDI motives and the literature on China's techno-industrial policy to classify different types of state-private sector coordination. We survey recent developments in China's cross-border acquisitions in Southeast Asia and provide illustrative case studies to support our argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interest in China's economy has typically been focused on its phenomenal growth. However, more recently there has been growing interest in emerging constraints on and vulnerabilities regarding that growth. A key focus has been concern with issues of shadow banking. This article discusses one aspect of China's finance system, which has some crossover with shadow banking: informal lending to private enterprises (PE). This lending is characteristically unstable and exhibits a number of features that constrain private enterprises. Intrinsic to those constraints are issues of usury, bribery and rent-seeking (as an expression of power), all of which bear on the institutional context of ethics. This article discusses the case of Wenzhou, the most prominent city for private enterprises in China. The Wenzhou case is explored using a narrative form drawing on multiple sources including academic papers, regulation, newspapers, and social media. This is an increasingly recognized approach within mixed methods research and this article supplies important qualitative insight into the how and why questions regarding the Wenzhou case. The Wenzhou case is typical in terms of the coexistence and interaction of formal and informal lending in China. Finally, we highlight the limits of the recent reform process and current approach to resolving the problem of financing for PEs in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has been engaged with Africa since the 1956. Following the domestic economic reforms of 1978, politically and ideologically motivated engagement gave way to economically and commercially driven cooperation. Successive waves of reforms in China have made the engagement more economically and commercially driven. Initially China’s engagement with Africa in general was dominated by China’s state-owned enterprises. More recently private enterprises have entered the arena.In discussions on China–Africa, China is often presented as a single actor. In fact, there are many ‘Chinas’ in Africa. More nuanced literature has disaggregated ‘China’ in Africa into different actors. With regard to China’s economic cooperation, the literature has either focused on its state-owned enterprises or the impacts of its commercial relations on local African business and populations. This paper intends to contribute to the growing literature on Chinese private enterprises in Africa. It provides a characterization of Chinese private companies in Kampala, Uganda, based on a recent survey of 42 Chinese enterprises there. It will present the data, analysis and stories of how and when they came, what problems they encountered and how these were solved based on the in-depth interviews that were carried out. The paper will show that many of these companies are relatively small, recent entrants in Uganda, motivated by the potential of the markets and increasingly facing problems with the authorities concerning their visas and work permits. It will be concluded that life for these private enterprises in Uganda is becoming gradually more difficult. There will be a shaking out of the companies that do not provide positive contributions to the local economy and society in general. This leaves many, especially smaller, Chinese private entrepreneurs uncertain about their future in Uganda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existing literature on firm survival focuses almost exclusively on firm- and industry-level determinants. What is generally overlooked, albeit extremely important for firm survival in developing countries, is the impact of institutional quality. Using data from manufacturing firms in China for the 1998-2005 period, we find that institutional quality has a significant and positive impact on the survival of private enterprises. Specifically, a one-standard-deviation increase in the security of property rights protection leads to an 8.8 percent decrease in the hazard rate of private enterprises. Our results are robust to the inclusion of control variables and to various checks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been argued that the state sector is advancing at the cost of the private sector in China. To examine this issue, we conduct an empirical analysis in which we exploit the launch of a large stimulus programme in the autumn of 2008. We find that stateowned enterprises (SOEs) are better able to maintain their leverage levels and have better access to both short- and long-term debt compared with private firms after the introduction of the stimulus programme. We also find that preferential access to debt financing does not help SOEs improve their performance. Instead, SOEs perform significantly worse than private firms after the introduction of the stimulus programme. Moreover, political connections obtained through political participation help mitigate the discrimination that private firms face from Chinese banks and help improve firm performance. These results support the conjecture that China's state sector is advancing, with negative consequences for aggregate performance in the economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author estimates the reaction of the foreign trade of domestic and external sectors of the Chinese economy on the increase in the wages growth pace. On the basis of Chinese and international statistics for the period of 2001–2011 the author analyzes the structure of the foreign trade of domestic and external sectors of Chinese economy and estimates the factors of its dynamics. The article shows that the most dynamically developing segments of the domestic sector are private enterprises and the leaders of the external sector are TNCs. With the help of regression analysis the author proves that the increase in wages has the same negative impact on exports of both sectors; however, the export of private enterprises will be affected the most by the adverse impacts. It is determined that the increase in wages contributes to the reduction of the external sector imports and the domestic sector imports growth will be ensured by the internal demand mechanisms, mainly, with the help of private enterprises. The article shows that the increase of salaries contributes to the reduction of the positive trade balance of China at the expense of the domestic sector; however, the positive balance of the external sector (TNCs) will remain practically the same because of its very close links with the global markets of goods, capital and labour. So only the fluctuations of these markets can significantly influence the parameters of the external sector trade

Purpose |!|#8211; The purpose of this paper is to comprehensively investigate the combined influence of a firm|!|#39;s political connection and diversification on corporate performance, and to explore whether firm|!|#39;s political connection has an impact on the diversification effect, and whether this diversification effect would promote its performance significantly or not. Design/methodology/approach |!|#8211; The research used a regression model to explore the correlation among political connection, diversification strategy, and corporate performance. The research subjects are the private enterprises listed on Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchange in China for the period 2002-2005. Findings |!|#8211; The study found that: first, for those firms without political connections, the relationship between diversification strategy and corporate performance displayed an |!|#34;inverted U|!|#34; curve; for firms with political connection, the relationship was a |!|#34;reverse L|!|#34;. Second, firms with political connections are more likely to implement a diversification strategy, especially unrelated diversification. Third, when implementing an internationalization strategy, private enterprises with political connections are more likely to expand through unrelated diversification strategy. Fourth, the diversification of the enterprises with political connection are more likely to promote the short-term accounting performance than those without political connection, but the unrelated diversification of politically connected enterprises would have a negative impact upon its future performance, that is to damage the company|!|#39;s market value. Originality/value |!|#8211; The paper expands the literature on the relationship between diversification and firm performance. It contributes to the research about the influence of political connection upon corporate performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main purpose of this paper is to examine the factors that determine the business policies of private enterprises in the People's Republic of China. Little is known about these private enterprises although these are surpassing the state-owned enterprises to become the most important corporate sector in China. The phenomenal growths of these enterprises provide an interesting setting to study the effect of the investment opportunity set (IOS) on business policies. We also examine how a firm's political connection, generally believed to be instrumental to a firm's success in transition economies, affects its business policies. We provide evidence on the importance of these factors in shaping the private firms' business policies in China. More specifically, our results show that growth firms pay lower dividends, have lower overdue receivables relative to sales, have higher percentage of bonus shares, and are more likely to engage in joint ventures. In addition, firms with better political connection are able to borrow more, are more likely to establish a board of directors, and are more likely to acquire SOEs. These results have policy implications with regard to private enterprises in transitional economies in general and those in China in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Issues related to corporate social responsibility (CSR) have been the subject of growing debate across an increasingly wide range of disciplines in social sciences and business and management studies. China has been facing mounting pressure to take CSR issues seriously especially vis a vis environmental issues and labour standards. However, issues related to CSR and human resource management (HRM) in China remain under-explored. This study investigates how managers of textile and apparel firms perceive CSR issues, what actions they are taking and what implications these may have for institutional bodies that seek to promote CSR in the country. The study concludes that firms tend to adopt a business case approach to CSR, focusing on the market rather than their employees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cet article évalue la part croissante du secteur privé chinois en Afrique. Actuellement l’attention se porte sur les entreprises publiques chinoises qui investissent dans le secteur minier et peu d’intérêt est accordé aux entreprises du secteur privé. Cette étude comble ce manque en évaluant les caractéristiques et les motivations des entreprises privées chinoises et leurs impacts sur le développement. Les principaux résultats montrent que les entreprises privées chinoises suivent leur propre voie et les facteurs déterminant l’investissement privé sont les opportunités offertes par les marchés africains, la concurrence intra-chinoise et un fort esprit d’entreprise. Il manque un mécanisme efficace qui pourrait relier la politique africaine de la Chine et sa mise en oeuvre par l’intermédiaire de l’engagement du secteur privé chinois. Afin de maximiser les gains en termes de développement, une approche des relations chinoises publiques-privées qui soit « top-down » et « bottom-up » et fondée sur la réciprocité est nécessaire. Il s’agit d’un processus d’apprentissage mutuel pour les relations publiques-privées chinoises ainsi que pour les relations Chine-Afrique. Ce sont des relations fluides qui se forment et s’adaptent l’une à l’autre.European Journal of Development Research (2009) 21, 570–587. doi:10.1057/ejdr.2009.21 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]