Encountering Chinese Networks
Subtitle: Western, Japanese, and Chinese Corporations in China, 1880-1937
Edition: 1 edition
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: September 4, 2000
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 256
ISBN-13: 9780520216259
Subjects: Asian / Middle Eastern history: c 1500 to c 1900; Asian / Middle Eastern history: from c 1900 -; Asian studies; Economic history; International business; 20th century; c 1800 to c 1900; History: World; Corporations; Business & Economics; Business / Economics / Finance; International - General; China; Industrial management; Infrastructure; History / General; Business networks; Industries - General; History
First sentence: James A. Thomas wrote these words after presiding over British-American Tobacco Company's operations in China for almost twenty years, and he expressed here a dilemma that many managers have faced on entering China's market in the present as well as the past: how to retain control over a large corporation while adapting its "ways" to Chinese "civilization."
Description: "Cochran devotes a chapter each to six of the biggest business ventures in China before the Communist revolution: two Western-owned companies, Standard Oil and British-American Tobacco Company; two Japanese-owned companies, Mitsui Trading Company and Naigai Cotton Company; and two Chinese-owned firms, Shenxin Cotton Mills and China Match Company. In each case, he notes the businesses' efforts to introduce corporate hierarchies for managing the distribution of goods and the organization of factory workers, and he describes their encounters with a variety of Chinese social networks: tenacious factions of English-speaking compradors and powerful trade associations of non-English-speaking merchants channeling goods into the marketplace; and small cliques of independent labor bosses and big gangs of underworld figures controlling workers in the factories." "Drawing upon archival sources and individual interviews, Cochran describes the wide range of approaches that these businesses adopted to deal with Chinese social networks. Each business negotiated its own distinctive relationship with local networks, and as each business learned about marketing goods and managing factory workers in China, it adjusted this relationship." "In this book Cochran calls into question the idea that the spread of capitalism has caused business organizations to converge over time. His cases bring to light numerous organizational forms used by Western, Japanese, and Chinese corporations in China's past, and his conclusions suggest that businesses have experimented with new forms on the basis of their historical experiences - especially their encounters with social networks."--BOOK JACKET.