How Do Upper Echelons Perceive Porter’s Five Forces? Evidence From Strategic Entrepreneurship in China

Porter’s five forces model is an authoritative management tool used in analyzing the profitability and attractiveness of industries through an outside-in viewpoint. In the past decade, dramatic and rapid changes have prompted some criticism of the model. The comparison between new and old economy analysis makes the fundamentals of the model seem weak. Moreover, the past decade has shown that strategy and entrepreneurship in China are not completely dependent on the model. This study first aims to verify the sustainability of the five forces model and analyze its integration into China’s entrepreneurial economy. By conducting in-depth interviews among the upper echelons from various industries, it was found that along with the competitive factors emphasized by the model, Chinese entrepreneurs attend to cooperative factors such as Guanxi, the Chinese term for relationship, and the possibilities of technology integration with the five forces. They also tend to enlarge the strategic view to consider factors such as how the market evaluates the forces. To verify these findings, the authors carried out a large-scale survey with a modified questionnaire analyzing the data collected using exploratory factor analysis with SPSS 22. The outcome shows that Porter’s model is still valid to some extent. Companies are still working in a network of buyers, suppliers, substitutes, new entrants, and competitors. However, reinventions are necessary to include the new factors of Guanxi, technology (e-commerce and logistics), and marketing and branding, which have changed the structure of the industry. These factors arise from the cooperative nature of Chinese culture and may have equal or even larger significance compared with their competitive counterparts in today’s business world.

Visualization/Contemplation Sutras (Guan Jing)

The “visualization/contemplation sutras” (Ch. guan jing觀經) refers to six scriptures in the modern Sino-Japanese Buddhist canon Taishō shinshū daizōkyō大正新脩大藏經 (“T”). The six scriptures are each devoted to particular buddhas and bodhisattvas, and in some cases, the pure lands or heavens linked to them. They include: (a) Sutra on the Sea of Samādhi Attained through Contemplation of the Buddha (Guan fo sanmei hai jing觀佛三昧海經; T 643); (b) Sutra on the Contemplation of the Buddha of Immeasurable Life (Guan Wuliangshoufo jing觀無量壽佛經; T 365); (c) Sutra on the Contemplation of the Two Bodhisattvas Bhaiṣajyarāja and Bhaiṣajyasamudgata (Guan Yaowang Yaoshang erpusa jing觀藥王藥上二菩薩經; T 1161); (d) Sutra on the Contemplation of Maitreya Bodhisattva’s Ascent to Rebirth in Tuṣita Heaven (Guan Mile Pusa shangsheng doushuaitian jing觀彌勒菩薩上生兜率天經; T 452); (e) Sutra on the Contemplation of the Cultivation Methods of the Bodhisattva Samantabhadra (Guan Puxian Pusa xingfa jing觀普賢菩薩行法經; T 277); and (f) Sutra on the Contemplation of the Bodhisattva Ākāśagarbha (Guan Xukongzang Pusa jing觀虛空藏菩薩經; T 409). All six scriptures use the Chinese term guan觀 (or kuan) in their titles. All also feature instructions on contemplative techniques, which include fantastic visual imagery and other visionary phenomena. Due largely to these visual qualities, in English-language scholarship since the late 1950s, the most common translation for guan in their titles has been “visualization.” There is, however, no scholarly consensus for an Indic-language equivalent to guan in these scriptures, and the “visualization” designation has been increasingly questioned since the 2000s. Thus many scholars prefer the translation “contemplation,” while some opt for “discernment.” Further complicating study of the visualization/contemplation sutras are persistent questions of their provenance. The traditional translator attributions preserved in the Taishō canon all credit Indian or Central Asian monks for the “translations.” However, all six scriptures are extant only in Chinese or in translations based on the Chinese, and those translator attributions have been widely contested. Scholars thus variously posit Indian, Central Asian, or Chinese origins for the individual scriptures. The consensus as of 2020 is that, as Chinese texts, they all date to around the first half of the 5th century ce, and many scholars do accept the influence of Indian or Central Asian meditation masters active in China then. Such influence receives support in the near-contemporary emergence in China of meditation manuals that share distinctive terminology with the visualization/contemplation sutras and are often grouped with them in modern studies. Further research into the sutras should thus enrich the understanding of scriptural translation processes, the emergence of specific deity cults in East Asian Buddhism, and interlinked developments in the devotional, visionary, and contemplative practices associated with those cults.

PLATFORM AS NEW “DADDY”: CHINA’S GENDERED WANGHONG ECONOMY AND PATRIARCHAL PLATFORMS BEHIND

This paper provides an explorative analysis of gender as a critical dimension of the prospering wanghong economy in China with special attention devoted to the e-commerce wanghong value chains that are yet to be examined by scholars so far. Wanghong refers to a particular stream of vocational Chinese internet celebrities that have acquired their celebrity online and have acute incentives through various models to liquidate such online influence by transforming followers into consumers. While wanghong economy is often projected as a new platform economy that is by the women and for the women on diverse media outlets, my analysis highlights the structurally embedded gender hierarchy of this platform business ecosystem and the platform power increasingly associated with patriarchal order as exemplified by the updated meanings constructed around the Chinese term “baba” (daddy), which now is used to refer to platforms by wanghong and netizens. By combining the analysis of female participation at different levels of wanghong economy with the “platform-as-daddy” discourse prevalent on Douyin, one of the most popular social media platforms, this paper seeks to connect the industrial analysis of wanghong economy as one of the most prominent “platform economies” in contemporary China with its cultural dimensions. It accentuates the key roles of major Chinese platform companies as not only new critical intermediaries in perpetuating the ongoing patriarchal system between the state and users but also active participants that actively construct, and aggressively profit from, the gendered wanghong economy value chains.

Suspension: Seeking Agency for Change in the Hypermobile World

"Suspension" is the translation of the Chinese term xuanfu, which has been widely used in public discussions in China since the mid-2010s. Suspension indicates a state of being in which people move frequently, conduct intensive labour, and pause routine life—in order to benefit fast and then quickly escape. People keep moving, with no end in sight, instead of changing their current conditions, of which they disapprove. As a result, frantic entrepreneurial energy coexists with political resignation. Suspension is a life strategy, a multitude of experiences, a feeling—and now, a keyword: a crystallized consciousness with which the public problematize their experiences. This special issue develops this term into an analytical approach based on ethnographic research involving labour migrants in and from China. This approach turns migration into a basis for critical analyses on issues far beyond it; enables co-research between researchers, migrants, and the broader public; and seeks to cultivate agency for change among actors. This introductory essay, based on the author's long-term field research and public engagement, outlines why we need such an approach, and how we might develop it.

A study on East-Asian designations of pufferfish

In ancient Korea, pufferfish were called “복” or “복어,” whereas they have been called “hétún” (河豚) since the Ming dynasty in China, and were called “fugu” in ancient Japan. Since the introduction of the Chinese term “hétún” (河豚) into Korean and Japanese, pufferfish in Korea, China, and Japan have all been named “河豚.” Besides “하돈” (the Korean pronunciation of 河豚), pufferfish have been given various designations, such as the following: “후태” (鯸鮐) or “반어” (斑魚) based upon body patterns; “후이” (鯸鮧)” or “호이” (鰗鮧) by shape; and “기포어” (氣泡魚), “취두어” (吹肚魚), and “布久” by the look of its swollen belly. Other designations, such as “검돈” (黔魨), “작돈” (鵲魨), “활돈” (滑魨), “とらふぐ,” “からす,” and “ヒガンフグ,” were derived from pufferfish species, and designations like “진어” (嗔鱼) and “てっぽう” that originated from their habit also exist. As above, “복어” has various designations in each of the three countries, Korea, China, and Japan. These designations, composed of Chinese characters, influenced the others, and each country and ethnic group helped to form or transform new vocabularies. In particular, numerous terms concerning object designations in the forms of Chinese characters reveal hidden definitions of the ethnic groups and cultures in these designations. This study is focused on puffer designations in Korea, China, and Japan, how the puffer was named in each country from ancient through to modern times, and where the designations originated, and tries to determine the characteristics of each country’s puffer designations through investigation of the species and types of “pufferfish.”

A study on East-Asian designations of pufferfish

In ancient Korea, pufferfish were called “복” or “복어,” whereas they have been called “hétún” (河豚) since the Ming dynasty in China, and were called “fugu” in ancient Japan. Since the introduction of the Chinese term “hétún” (河豚) into Korean and Japanese, pufferfish in Korea, China, and Japan have all been named “河豚.” Besides “하돈” (the Korean pronunciation of 河豚), pufferfish have been given various designations, such as the following: “후태” (鯸鮐) or “반어” (斑魚) based upon body patterns; “후이” (鯸鮧)” or “호이” (鰗鮧) by shape; and “기포어” (氣泡魚), “취두어” (吹肚魚), and “布久” by the look of its swollen belly. Other designations, such as “검돈” (黔魨), “작돈” (鵲魨), “활돈” (滑魨), “とらふぐ,” “からす,” and “ヒガンフグ,” were derived from pufferfish species, and designations like “진어” (嗔鱼) and “てっぽう” that originated from their habit also exist. As above, “복어” has various designations in each of the three countries, Korea, China, and Japan. These designations, composed of Chinese characters, influenced the others, and each country and ethnic group helped to form or transform new vocabularies. In particular, numerous terms concerning object designations in the forms of Chinese characters reveal hidden definitions of the ethnic groups and cultures in these designations. This study is focused on puffer designations in Korea, China, and Japan, how the puffer was named in each country from ancient through to modern times, and where the designations originated, and tries to determine the characteristics of each country’s puffer designations through investigation of the species and types of “pufferfish.”

The Afro-Asian Silk Road: Chinese Experiments in Postcolonial Premodernity

This essay approaches the Silk Road as a modern narrative of China's connected past, rather than as a historical fact. The Chinese term Silk Road (sichou zhi lu; 丝绸之路) first gained currency after the 1955 Afro-Asian Conference in Bandung as part of the lexicon of anticolonial solidarity. During the Cold War, China's Afro-Asian Silk Road, different from the West's Europe-Asia Silk Road, prompted new interest in the linguistic dimension of connected history. Language contact traditionally held limited significance in European and Chinese philology because linguistic divisions were understood in terms of nation or language family. For Afro-Asian scholars and writers, however, precolonial language contact became a portent of postcolonial exchange. They shifted attention from genetic word roots to historical routes (e.g., loanwords). Within a longer history of what I call “contact philology,” China's short-lived collaborations refashioned the Orient as Afro-Asia and presented an (unfinished) critique of the tropes with which we narrate the connected past.

Massacre or Genocide? Redefining the Sook Ching

Sook Ching is a Chinese term meaning “purge through cleansing.” Operation Sook Ching took place in Singapore from February 21 to March 4, 1942. It was a military operation carried out by the Japanese with the intent of executing anti-Japanese Chinese men between the ages of 18 and 50. Ultimately, it is impossible to know exactly how many people were killed; the official Japanese figure is 5,000, while unofficial estimates reach as high as 50,000. Men were called into screening centers where disorganized screening procedures determined if they were anti-Japanese. The Sook Ching’s legacy lives on as one of the greatest tragedies in Singapore’s history. The intent of this paper is to argue for a redefinition of the Sook Ching as a genocide rather than a massacre. The cornerstones of this research are the United Nations’ Genocide Convention and contemporary sources discussing the crime. This research is important because it sets a precedent of accountability, as well as acknowledging the crimes the Japanese committed during the Second World War. This thesis will discuss the Sook Ching, its legacy, and the steps required to address the incident and right the wrongs that occurred. It will also examine the racial and political environment that set the stage for the tragedy, as well as the scars it left behind.