Organizational Improvisation, Architectural “Piggybacking,” and Masonic Networking in the International Settlement, Shanghai: Building an Anglican Cathedral, 1864–1869
Journal: Enterprise & Society
Year: 2024

Abstract This study provides a business history of the construction project to build a large Anglican church in colonial Shanghai in the 1860s. Employing three theoretical lenses, it focusses on the project’s management, setting it in its social, political, economic and architectural contexts. As well as analysing the project’s progress in detail, the paper discloses circumstances that were being faced more generally by resident British and international traders in Shanghai at this unsettled tim