Western Firms and Their Chinese Compradors

Meeting Place ◽  
2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bert Becker
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Detailed Examination ◽  
Multiple Roles ◽  
Business Networks ◽  
Chinese Markets ◽  
Complex Relationships

This chapter explores the close and complex relationships between members of the German Jebsen family, steamship entrepreneurs, and their comprador, Chau Yue Ting, a Western-educated member of a merchant family from Hainan based in Hong Kong. Through a detailed examination of correspondence and other business records, the chapter highlights the multiple roles of compradors not only as bicultural middlemen for Western interests but also as clients, customers, co-owners of businesses, employees and employers, creditors and debtors, and family friends. It challenges the simplistic view that foreign steamship companies in the region were tools of empire or spearheads of Western penetration into Chinese markets, stressing instead how Chinese merchants strategically made use of their services to extend and consolidate their own business networks.

Surviving Economic Crises in Southeast Asia and Southern China: The History of Eu Yan Sang Business Conglomerates in Penang, Singapore and Hong Kong

2002 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 579-617 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie Po-Yin Chung
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Southern China ◽  
Business Environment ◽  
Economic Behavior ◽  
Confucian Ethics ◽  
Business Success ◽  
Chinese Family ◽  
Business Culture ◽  
Business Networks ◽  
History Of

Prologue: Business Environment and Economic BehaviorFor more than two decades, sociologists, historians and economic geographers have produced many case studies on Chinese family businesses. A major consensus of these works suggests that ‘networking’, especially ethnic and familial, is extremely important to Chinese businesses. Various models and theories have been employed to explain this phenomenon. Notable among these explanations is the idea of Chinese entrepreneurship. According to this idea, such ethnicity-based groups as the Cantonese and the Fujianese (of the provinces of Guangdong and Fujian), are regarded to be culturally oriented towards business entrepreneurship and the cultivation of business networks. Before the outbreak of the Asian economic crisis in October 1997, many researchers believed that ‘Chinese entrepreneurship’ and the ‘business culture of networking’ contributed to the success of Chinese businesses in Asia (especially in the ‘Four Little Dragons’ of coastal Asia). For example, Confucian ethics and its emphasis on familial and ethnic networks is regarded as an asset for business expansion by Chinese international enterprises based in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore. After the outbreak of the crisis, more research on the nature of Chinese entrepreneurship and the culture of networking was carried out. This research started from a different angle. The reliance on politically secured economic privileges (i.e.; nepotism), was identified as a defect of networking and thus, one of the major underlying causes of the crisis. The claim that the culture of networking contributes to business success actually offers a readily available explanation for its failure as well (see for examples Redding, 1990; Yeung, 1997; Yeung, 1998).

scholarly journals Making ways for ‘better education’: Placing the Shenzhen-Hong Kong mobility industry

Urban Studies ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 004209802110427
Author(s):  
Maggi WH Leung ◽  
Johanna L Waters ◽  
Yunyun Qin
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Media Analysis ◽  
Border Region ◽  
Business Networks ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
Two Cities ◽  
Mobility System ◽  
And Control

Tens of thousands of children living on Mainland China cross the border between Shenzhen and Hong Kong for a ‘better education’ every day. A well-oiled industry is in place to manage, facilitate and control this education mobility field. It involves schools, diverse businesses and non-governmental organisations that, in articulation with the Chinese and Hong Kong states, stimulate and regulate the movement of people, materialities, ideas and practices. Drawing on our fieldwork and media analysis, this paper unpacks the transurban mobility industry to illustrate the role of the various players and how they work in conjunction to facilitate cross-border schooling, especially among the very young children. We map out and visualise with photos the workings of the schools, buses, escorts, tutoring centres, day care and boarding houses. We show how the mobility industry, intersecting with other business networks and mobility systems, links Shenzhen and Hong Kong, taking and making places in these cities, especially in the border region. Our paper illustrates the role of this mobility industry in the making of the political-economy and socio-culture of the border area, which constantly connects, divides and redefines the two cities and regions it bridges. We end with some reflections on the implications of the recent political challenges and COVID-19 pandemic on this cross-border education mobility system.

Embedding Foreign Affiliates in Transnational Business Networks: The Case of Hong Kong Firms in Southeast Asia

2000 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-222 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry Wai-Chung Yeung
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Network Formation ◽  
Group Performance ◽  
Business Networks ◽  
Business Association ◽  
Chinese Business ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Winning Strategies ◽  
Foreign Affiliates

The author aims to examine the nature and organisation of transnational business networks. From an empirical study of some 111 parent Hong Kong transnational corporations (TNCs) and 63 of their foreign affiliates in Southeast Asia, he argues that the role and functions of TNC affiliates are critically dependent on their embeddedness in transnational business networks. These transnational business networks can be organised either within TNCs (intrafirm) or with local firms (interfirm). This network embeddedness of TNC affiliates is socially organised and can be strategically deployed to facilitate the extension of network associations through time and space. Two detailed case studies of business networks of Hong Kong TNCs (HKTNCs) in Southeast Asia present several interesting illustrations. First, the strategic strength and spatial reach of intrafirm networks determine the competitive advantage of Hong Kong TNCs in the regional economy. Better integration and regional coverage are the winning strategies of Hong Kong firms in Southeast Asia. Second, the embeddedness of foreign affiliates in the business networks of HKTNCs are socially constructed. Personal relationships and business association among leading actors in HKTNC networks provide the underlying organising principles of such network formation. Third, the functions and contributions of local Southeast Asian affiliates to overall group performance are related to their access to local business and other forms of interfirm networks. Local affiliates with strong networking capabilities tend to receive more support and coordination from parent TNCs. In the concluding section the author offers some implications for recent developments in network theory in economic geography and geographies of Chinese business networks in Asia.

The Design of Virtual Space

2010 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 57-76
Author(s):  
Steve Guynup
Keyword(s):  
User Experience ◽  
Detailed Examination ◽  
World Of Warcraft ◽  
Virtual Space ◽  
Task Completion ◽  
Space Travel ◽  
Virtual Spaces ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Complex Relationships ◽  
And Task

Videogames are the starting point for the general understanding of virtual space. (Grove & Williams, 1998). Academics use videogames to describe virtual space (Murray, 1997; Nitsche, 2009). Others argue that there is no understanding of virtual space, only a loose collection of articles connected by the issue of realism in rendering or behavior (Manovich, 2001). These statements point to a lack of understanding of virtual space on its own terms and set the stage for this document. This is a design document, written by a designer of virtual spaces. Its purpose is to provocatively explore user experience and task completion as forces that influence the design of virtual space. This is not a conventional research paper. The complex relationships of narrative, realism, motivation, usability, and human computer interaction (HCI) are unpacked in the videogame World of Warcraft through a detailed examination of travel. It is proposed that the exploration of travel in a videogame can provide a toolkit of ideas for the application of narrative, realism, motivation, and usability in virtual space. Travel can inform designers on issues of user experience and task completion in virtual spaces

Transnational Corporations and Business Networks: Hong Kong Firms in the ASEAN Region

2001 ◽  
Vol 77 (1) ◽  
pp. 84
Author(s):  
Prescott C. Ensign ◽  
Henry Wai-chung Yeung
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Transnational Corporations ◽  
Business Networks

scholarly journals Sex Work and Stigma Management in China and Hong Kong: The Role of State Policy and NGO Advocacy

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Susanne Y.P. Choi ◽  
Ruby Y.S. Lai
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Identity Management ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Structural Features ◽  
State Policies ◽  
Sex Industry ◽  
Self Image ◽  
Complex Relationships

Abstract This paper examines the impacts of state policies and NGO advocacy on female sex workers’ identity and how they manage stigma. Comparing three groups of sex workers – those born and working in mainland China, those born and working in Hong Kong, and those born in mainland China who later migrated to Hong Kong and entered the sex industry – this paper suggests that differences in state policies on prostitution and the different degrees of visibility of NGOs campaigning for sex workers’ rights are related to three strategies used by sex workers to construct a positive self-image to counteract the stigma they face: gendered obligation fulfilment, professional work and responsible citizenship. The paper illustrates that stigmatized-identity management involves complex relationships among individual interpretation, selection and mobilization of gender, work and citizenship scripts, which are contingent on structural features of the environment and may change during migration and relocation.

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