The Making of the State Enterprise System in Modern China: The Dynamics of Institutional Change

When, how, and why did the state enterprise system of modern China take shape? The conventional argument is that China borrowed its economic system and development strategy wholesale from the Soviet Union in the 1950s. In an important new interpretation, Morris Bian shows instead that the basic institutional arrangement of state-owned enterprise—bureaucratic governance, management and incentive mechanisms, and the provision of social services and welfare—developed in China during the war years 1937–1945.

Bian offers a new theory of institutional change that explains the formation of China’s state enterprise system as the outcome of the sustained systemic crisis triggered by the Sino–Japanese war. This groundbreaking work combines critical analysis of government policies with case studies of little-studied enterprises in heavy industries and the ordnance industry. Drawing on extensive research in previously unavailable archives, Bian adds a valuable historical perspective to the current debate on how to reform China’s sluggish and unprofitable state-owned firms.

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The Making of the State Enterprise System in Modern China: The Dynamics of Institutional Change

When, how, and why did the state enterprise system of modern China take shape? The conventional argument is that China borrowed its economic system and development strategy wholesale from the Soviet Union in the 1950s. In an important new interpretation, Morris Bian shows instead that the basic institutional arrangement of state-owned enterprise—bureaucratic governance, management and incentive mechanisms, and the provision of social services and welfare—developed in China during the war years 1937–1945.

Bian offers a new theory of institutional change that explains the formation of China’s state enterprise system as the outcome of the sustained systemic crisis triggered by the Sino–Japanese war. This groundbreaking work combines critical analysis of government policies with case studies of little-studied enterprises in heavy industries and the ordnance industry. Drawing on extensive research in previously unavailable archives, Bian adds a valuable historical perspective to the current debate on how to reform China’s sluggish and unprofitable state-owned firms.

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The Making of the State Enterprise System in Modern China: The Dynamics of Institutional Change

The Making of the State Enterprise System in Modern China: The Dynamics of Institutional Change

by Morris L. Bian
The Making of the State Enterprise System in Modern China: The Dynamics of Institutional Change

The Making of the State Enterprise System in Modern China: The Dynamics of Institutional Change

by Morris L. Bian

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Overview

When, how, and why did the state enterprise system of modern China take shape? The conventional argument is that China borrowed its economic system and development strategy wholesale from the Soviet Union in the 1950s. In an important new interpretation, Morris Bian shows instead that the basic institutional arrangement of state-owned enterprise—bureaucratic governance, management and incentive mechanisms, and the provision of social services and welfare—developed in China during the war years 1937–1945.

Bian offers a new theory of institutional change that explains the formation of China’s state enterprise system as the outcome of the sustained systemic crisis triggered by the Sino–Japanese war. This groundbreaking work combines critical analysis of government policies with case studies of little-studied enterprises in heavy industries and the ordnance industry. Drawing on extensive research in previously unavailable archives, Bian adds a valuable historical perspective to the current debate on how to reform China’s sluggish and unprofitable state-owned firms.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780674262034
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Publication date: 04/30/2005
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 346
File size: 6 MB

About the Author

Morris L. Bian is Associate Professor of History at Auburn University.

Table of Contents

Contents Acknowledgments Introduction 1 Development of the Ordnance Industry 2 Expansion of Heavy Industries 3 Enterprise Governance Structure 4 Enterprise Management and Incentive Mechanisms 5 Enterprise Provision of Social Services and Welfare 6 Danwei Designation of State-Owned Enterprises 7 Nationalist Ideology of the Developmental State Conclusion Appendix: Tables Abbreviations Notes Index

What People are Saying About This

Bian is one of the leaders of a generation of young scholars who have placed the history of Chinese business enterprise∆-private and now public∆-at the heart of historical discussion in the field.

Parks M. Coble

A major study of wartime China's economic system. Bian presents an interesting view of the emergence of the danwei (work unit) system in contemporary China that sees its origins not simply in a model borrowed from the Soviet Union after 1949, but one with roots in China's republican era, particularly the wartime period. He is particularly effective in tracing ideas of the developmental state back to Sun Yatsen. Well researched and tightly organized, this is an important work in our understanding of developments in twentieth-century China.
Parks M. Coble, University of Nebraska

William C. Kirby

Bian is one of the leaders of a generation of young scholars who have placed the history of Chinese business enterprise?-private and now public?-at the heart of historical discussion in the field.
William C. Kirby, Harvard University

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