Getting Rich and Staying Connected: The Organizational Medium of Chinese Capitalists

• Main Authors: CHUNG, Wai Keung, HAMILTON, Gary G.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2009
• Subjects: Chinese businessmen; organizational medium; organizational innovation; wealth accumulation; East Asia; South East Asia; Asian Studies; Political Economy
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/557
• Institution: Singapore Management University

This article answers the following question: 'What is the organizational medium that has allowed a few Chinese businesspeople in East and Southeast Asia to accumulate considerable wealth and economic power?' In the course of giving an answer, we show the organizational differences between traditional business networks in the late Qing and early Republican periods and the Chinese business networks in modern capitalist Asia. We argue that, throughout the twentieth century, Chinese business people outside of China proper began to adapt Western corporate structures for their own purposes and that this organizational innovation allowed Chinese to develop and sustain personal networks through which wealth and power could be concentrated.