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The Spirit of Chinese Capitalism (Degruyter Studies in Organization)

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The author is the director of the Euro-Asia Centre, INSEAD and Professor of Management Studies, the University of Hong Kong Business School. He is a specialist on Asian management and Chinese capitalism.

The key objectives of this book are twofold. First, this book follows the Weberian premise that cultural values significantly affect economic behaviour of people. Second, Chinese family business represents a new form of capitalism which is different from their counterparts in the West.

Based on in-depth interviews of 72 Chinese entrepreneurs and their senior executives in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South East Asia, Professor Redding concludes that Confucianism impacts on the emergence of family business in the Diaspora Chinese communities in Asia. Confucianism becomes core cultural values that places great emphasis on paternalism, collectivism, personalism, social hierarchy, and familism.

This book should be the first and also the most comprehensive study of traditional national culture and Chinese family business in the Diaspora Chinese communities. The adoption of qualitative in-depth interviews as the key research instrument becomes effective for data collection from Chinese entrepreneurs. However, the name of this book should be entitled `The Spirit of Overseas Chinese Capitalism' instead of `The Spirit of Chinese Capitalism' because Professor Redding can convincingly show why Confucian values become key economic motivator in the Diaspora Chinese communities but he mentions nothing about Confucianism and the emergence of family business in Mainland China. Readers might also question whether Confucian values in China are different from other Diaspora Chinese communities in Asia. Current management literature has demonstrated that cultural values in Mainland China witness a great departure from traditional Confucian values so that it is quite controversial to conclude that Confucian values are still the most important economic motivator. Besides, due to globalisation and the influence of western culture, some of the distinct character of cultural values such as `protecting face' and `bring honour to one's ancestor' are no longer to receive high recognition in the Diaspora Chinese communities. Therefore, the adoption of cultural approach to explain economic success of Chinese family business in either Mainland China or the Diaspora Chinese communities remains highly controversial.