Abstract:
There are essentially three difficulties attending any search for cultural explanations
of change in China: culture can be a broad and often a somewhat imprecise concept;
the scale of China makes for difficulties in the unit of analysis; and the assumption of
historical continuity may be somewhat attenuated. The antidote to essentialisation
about Chinese culture is to approach explanation at a more local level. A recognition
that there are local accounts of social and economic change that both help motivate
behaviour and provide legitimation for specific forms of activity provides a more
convincing framework for understanding the role of culture in both the evolution of
the economic environment and business development. The evidence from an
examination of town and village enterprises and their enterpreneurs in Taiyuan,
provincial capital of Shanxi; of Islamic Salar entrepreneurs in Xunhua (Qinghai
Province); and of women entrepreneurs in Qiongshan, Hainan, suggests that at the
local level the state and economic interests have harnessed symbolic and
representational forms of culture for particular interests and goals, including attempts
to create a local competitive advantage for particular industries and social groups. In
this process local cultural practice is used to underpin the manner of business
development, including the structures of ownership, management and operation, as
well as to some extent the kinds of economic activity that are developed.
