From Cotton Mill to Business Empire: The Emergence of Regional Enterprises in Modern China (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780674013940)

The demise of state-owned enterprises, the transformation of collectives into shareholding cooperatives, and the creation of investment opportunities through stock markets indicate China's movement from a socialist, state-controlled economy toward a socialist market economy. Yet, contrary to high expectations that China's new enterprises will become like corporations in capitalist countries, management often remains under the control of the onetime bureaucrats who ran the socialist enterprises.

The concepts, definitions, and interpretations of property rights, corporate structures, and business practices in contemporary China have historical, institutional, and cultural roots. In tracing the development under founder Zhang Jian (1853-1926) and his successors of the Dasheng Cotton Mill in Nantong into a business group encompassing, among other concerns, cotton, flour, and oil mills, land development companies, and shipping firms, the author documents the growth of regional enterprises as local business empires from the 1890s until the foundation of the People's Republic in 1949. She focuses on the legal and managerial evolution of limited-liability firms in China, particularly issues of control and accountability; the introduction and management of industrial work in the countryside; and the integration and interdependency of local, national, and international markets in Republican China.

Author: Elisabeth Köll
ISBN-10: 0674013948
ISBN-13: 9780674013940
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Language: English
Published: 03/01/2004
Pages: 448
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.67lbs
Size: 9.30h x 6.24w x 1.41d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 07/01/2004 pg. 2093