: DE-ESSENTIALISING CHINESE EIVTERPRISE: TRANSNATIONALISM, NETWORKS AND BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

Abstract

A number of scholars have traced Chinese economic behaviour to cultural traditions. In this tradition of scholarship, Chinese culture explains the dynamism of entrepreneurship among 'overseas' Chinese. Culture also characterises the way Chinese businesses organise themselves. Reading, for example, claims that enough commonalities exist among Chinese enterprises to allow him to posit the argument that cultural features explain their mode of business development. Chinese entrepreneurs expand not by enlarging an extant business but by creating new ones. Whitley, though taking an institutional rather than a strictly cultural approach, characterises the form of business organisation among members of this ethnic community as the 'Chinese family business'.