Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T03:05:15.706Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

A New Agenda for Research on the Trajectory of Chinese Capitalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2015

Neil Fligstein
Affiliation:
University of California, USA
Jianjun Zhang
Affiliation:
Peking University, China

Abstract

This article sets a new agenda for research on the trajectory of Chinese capitalism. We first critically review the conflicting views on the causes of China's economic development. Then we suggest that insights from the comparative capitalism and economic sociology literatures can provide theoretical tools to understand the critical features of Chinese capitalism in a more systematic manner. The comparative capitalism literature can help us understand how Chinese capitalism resembles or differs from other varieties of capitalism in terms of the relationships between government, firms, and workers. The literature on economic sociology provides insights about how particular markets have evolved and become stabilized. We use these perspectives to suggest a set of possible research agendas for studying Chinese capitalism.

Type
Forum Articles
Copyright
Copyright © International Association for Chinese Management Research 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Albert, M. 1993. Capitalism against capitalism. London: Whurr.Google Scholar
Amable, B. 2003. The diversity of modern capitalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Amsden, A. H. 1991. Diffusion of development: The late-industrializing model and greater East Asia. American Economic Review, 81(2): 282286.Google Scholar
Berger, S., & Dore, R. 1996. National diversity and global capitalism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Blanchard, O., & Shleifer, A. 2001. Federalism with and without political centralization: China vs. Russia in transitional economics: How much progress? IMF Staff Papers, 48(SI): 171179.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blue book of private enterprises. 2009. Public listed corporations originated from private enterprises have taken over one-third. [Cited 1 September 2009.] Available from URL: http://finance.ce.cn/stock/gsgdbd/200908/06/t20090806-14838867.shtmlGoogle Scholar
Boisot, M., & Child, J. 1999. Organizations as adaptive systems in complex environments: The case of China. Organization Science, 10(3): 237252.Google Scholar
Chow, G. C. 2007. China's economic transformation (2nd ed.). New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Davis, G. F. 1991. Agents without principles? The spread of the poison pill through the intercorporate network. Administrative Science Quarterly, 36(4): 583613.Google Scholar
Davis, G. F., Diekmann, K. A., & Tinsley, C. H. 1994. The decline and fall of the conglomerate firm in the 1980s: The deinstitutionalization of an organizational form. American Sociology Review, 59(4): 547570.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ding, X. L. 2000a. The illicit asset stripping of Chinese state firms. The China fournal, 43(1): 128.Google Scholar
Ding, X. L. 2000b. Systemic irregularity and spontaneous property transformation in the Chinese financial system. The China Quarterly, 163: 655676.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dobbin, F., & Dowd, T.J. 2000. The market that antitrust built: Public policy, private coercion, and railroad acquisitions, 1825-1922. American Sociology Review, 65(5): 631657.Google Scholar
Evans, P. B. 1995. Embedded autonomy: States and industrial transformation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fligstein, N. 1990. The transformation of corporate control. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Fligstein, N. 2001. The architecture of markets: An economic sociology of twenty-first-century capitalist societies. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Fligstein, N., & Dauter, L. 2006. The sociology of markets. Annual Review of Sociology, 33: 124.Google Scholar
Forbes. 2008. The 100 richest people in China. October 29: 8491.Google Scholar
Fukuyama, F. 1995. Trust: Social virtues and the creation of prosperity. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Gao, B. 2008. State building and market building: The rise of a small commodities market. Unpublished paper, Duke University, Durham, NC.Google Scholar
Gold, T., Guthrie, D., & Wank, D. 2002. Social connections in China: Institutions, culture, and the changing nature of guanxi. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Granovetter, M. 1985. Economic action and social structure: The problem of embeddedness. American fournal of Sociology, 91(3): 481510.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guthrie, D. 1998. The declining significance of guanxi in China's economic transition. The China Quarterly, 154: 254282.Google Scholar
Guthrie, D. 1999. Dragon in a three piece suit: The emergence of capitalism in China. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Guthrie, D., Xiao, Z., & Wang, J. 2008. Aligning the interests of multiple principals: Ownership concentration and profitability in China's publicly-traded firms. Revised from the paper presented at the conference of the International Association for Chinese Management Research, Guangzhou, June 2008.Google Scholar
Hall, P. A., & Soskice, D. W. 2001. Varieties of capitalism: The institutional foundations of comparative advantage. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Haveman, H., Calomiris, C., & Wang, Y. 2008. Going (more) public: Ownership reform among Chinese firms. Paper presented at the Chinese Management Association Meetings, Guangzhou, PRC, June 2008.Google Scholar
Huang, Y. 2008. Capitalism with Chinese characteristics: Entrepreneurship and the state. Cambridge, NY: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Krug, B., & Hendrischke, H. 2008. Framing China: Transformation and institutional change through co-evolution. Management and Organization Review, 4(1): 81108.Google Scholar
Li, H., & Zhou, L.-A. 2005. Political turnover and economic performance: The incentive role of personnel control in China, Journal of Public Economics, 89(9-10): 17431762.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lin, Y., Cai, F., & Li, Z. 1999. The Chinese miracle: Development strategy and economic reform. Shanghai: Shanghai Sanlian Bookstore/Shanghai People's Publisher.Google Scholar
Liu, A. 1992. The ‘Wenzhou Model’ of development and China's modernization. Asian Survey, 32(8): 696711.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lu, X. 1999. From rank-seeking to rent-seeking: Changing administrative ethos and corruption in reform China. Crime, Law & Social Change, 32(4): 347370.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luo, Y. 2006. Opportunism in inter-firm exchanges in emerging markets. Management and Organization Review, 2(1): 121147.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lyles, M. A., Flynn, B. B., & Frohlich, M. T. 2008. All supply chains don't flow through: Understanding supply chain issues in product recall. Management and Organization Review, 4(2): 167182.Google Scholar
Montinola, G., Qian, Y., & Weingast, B. 1995. Federalism, Chinese style: The political basis for economic success in China. World Politics, 48(1): 5081.Google Scholar
Naughton, B. 1995. Growing out of the plan: Chinese economic reform 1979-1993. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Naughton, B. 2007. The Chinese economy: Transitions and growth. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Nee, V. 1989. A theory of market transition: From redistribution to markets in state socialism. American Sociological Review, 54(5): 663681.Google Scholar
Nee, V., Opper, S., & Wong, S. 2007. Developmental state and corporate governance in China. Management and Organization Review, 3(1): 1953.Google Scholar
O'Leary, G. (Ed.). 1998. Adjusting to capitalism. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.Google Scholar
Oi, J. 1992. Fiscal reform and the economic foundations of local state corporatism in China. World Politics, 45(1): 99126.Google Scholar
Peng, M. W., & Heath, P. S. 1996. The growth of the firm in planned economies in transition: Institutions, organizations, and strategic choice. Academy of Management Review, 21(2): 492528.Google Scholar
Peng, M. W., & Luo, Y. D. 2000. Managerial ties and firm performance in a transition economy: The nature of a micro-macro link. Academy of Management f ournal, 43(3): 486501.Google Scholar
Qin, H. 2005. Economic transition, social justice, and democracy. The Chinese Economy, 38(5): 354.Google Scholar
Qin, H. 2008. The formation and future of Chinese miracle: My view of 30 years reform. [Cited 2 February 2009.] Available from URL: http://www.blogchina.com/20080221478808.htmlGoogle Scholar
SASAC. 2009. The reform and restructuring of central government owned enterprises will be strengthened in the next step. [Cited 1 September 2009.] Available from URL: http://news.sohu.com/20090831 /n266349692.shtmlGoogle Scholar
So, A. (Ed.). 2003. China's developmental miracle: Origins, transformations, and challenges. New York: M.E. Sharpe.Google Scholar
Tian, X. 2001. Privatization and economic growth: Evidence from Chinese provinces. Economic Systems, 25(1): 6577.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tsai, K. 2002. Back-alley banking: Private entrepreneurs in China. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Tsui, A. S., Bian, Y., & Cheng, L. (Eds.). 2006. China's domestic private firms: Multidisci-plinary perspectives on management and performance. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.Google Scholar
Visser, J. 2006. Union membership statistics in 24 countries. Monthly Labor Review, January: 3849.Google Scholar
Wade, R. 1990. Governing the market: Economic theory and the role of government in East Asian industrialization. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Wang, J. 2009. Global-market building as state building: China's entry into the WTO and market reforms of China's tobacco industry. Theory and Society, 38(2): 165194.Google Scholar
Wank, D. 1999. Commodifying communism: Business, trust, and politics in a Chinese city. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Weingast, B. 1995. The economic role of political institutions: Market-preserving federalism and economic development. Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, 11(1): 131.Google Scholar
White, H. 1981. Where do markets come from? American Journal of Sociology, 87(3): 517547.Google Scholar
White, R. E., Hoskisson, R. E., Yiu, D. W., & Bruton, G. D. 2008. Employment and market innovation in Chinese business group affiliated firms: The role of group control systems. Management and Organization Review, 4(2): 225256.Google Scholar
Whiting, S. 2001. Power and wealth in rural China: The political economy of institutional change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Whyte, M. K. 1995. The social roots of China's economic development. The China Quarterly, 144: 9991019.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Xin, K., & Pearce, J. L. 1996. Guanxi: Connections as substitutes for formal institutional support. Academy of Management Journal, 39(6): 16411658.Google Scholar
Yang, D. 1996. Beyond Beijing. London: Roudedge.Google Scholar
Zhang, J. 2008. Marketization and democracy in China. London: Roudedge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhang, J., & Keh, H. T. 2010. Interorganizational exchanges in China: Organizational forms and governance mechanisms. Management and Organization Review, 6(1): 123147.Google Scholar
Zhou, K. X. 1996. How the farmers changed China: Power of the people. Boulder: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Zhou, K. Z., Poppo, L., & Yang, Z. 2008. Relational ties or customized contracts? An examination of alternative governance choices in China. Journal of International Business Studies, 39(3): 526534.Google Scholar
Zorn, D. M. 2004. Here a chief, there a chief: The rise of the CFO in the American firm. American Sociology Review, 69(3): 345364.Google Scholar
Zuckerman, E. W. 1999. The categorical imperative: Securities analysts and the illegitimacy discount. American Journal of Sociology, 104(5): 13981438.Google Scholar
Zuckerman, E. W. 2000. Focusing the corporate product: Securities analysts and de-diversification. Administrative Science Quarterly, 45(3): 591619.Google Scholar