entrepreneurial china
DESCRIPTION
China's exponential growth is propelled by its entrepreneurs. This concise overview analyses what drives them - and what holds them back. Four different types of entrepreneur are profiled.....TRANSCRIPT
China:10 Insights
into Chinese entrepreneurs
Asia 5Bringing you a flavour of businesstrends in Asia...in just 5 minutes
A Futures Coaching initiativewww.futurescoaching.com
engine
The changes in China have been propelled
by Chinese entrepreneurs....
Aided by government's policies
towards economic reform
71% Chinese business people want to be self-employed (vs 55% USA, 45% EU)
Chinese entrepreneurs want to go fast.....37% want to expand quickly vs 14% USA and 17% EU
(source: Eurobarometer, 2009)
aspiration
four types
There are four types of entrepreneur in China
1. Self-employed subsistence workers
2. Tide Players – driven to escape poverty, emerging from late 1980s
3. Sea Turtles – Foreign educated Chinese returning to start businesses from late 1990s
4. Young entrepreneurs motivated by recent economic opportunity
tide players
>50 year old Chinese entrepreneurs started with nothing...but at least had no incumbents nor inherited
wealth to challenge them
Grew up under Mao: worked on farms; very poor; self taught maybe had 'rightist' parents who were executed
Luckiest went to University when opened up after 1975; but few speak English
These people are true survivors: they have a pragmatic
philosophy: “When you face a
great tide, the important thing is
action”
sea turtlesAware of the role foreign-educated Chinese played in
Taiwan's take-off, authorities have actively encouraged this return e.g. by setting up science parks, working with
foreign companies
Returnees from the
West are known as hai gui
Many of China's most successful entrepreneurs skillfully have adapted winning American concepts
for domestic consumption e.g. Taobao (the Chinese ebay)
youngProfile of young Chinese entrepreneurs
- fewer single children(since solo child's parents are more controlling)
- more mid-region than eastern coast (more virgin territory, plus coast now affords salaried alternatives)
- more male, urban
- educated, often studying law or business (but less to PhD level)
- motivated by opportunties ordissatisfaction with standard office work
(source: 2011 study by Tsinghua University)
Business people in China are politically conservative and favour slow change over radical
What counts is stability and efficiency – and the ongoing goodwill of the regime
Official policies toward private businessradically improved after 1992
political realism
Politics is important. 40% of entrepreneurs are in the Communist Party; it is essential to court good
relationships with the authorities
Guanxi (connections) is much misunderstood by the West; even returning Chinese have to re-educate
themselves to the rules of the game
It is said that the US is ruled by law and China by people
Entrepreneurs must be ready for factionalism, opportunistic power realignments, gifts for officials etc.
the way things get done
Things holding back entrepreneurs
- continuing political and legal uncertainty
- access to funding (capital markets are underdeveloped)
- difficulty attracting high skilled labour and management
- less nurturing talent (although colleges for entrepreneurs have opened e.g. by Alibaba businessman, Jack Ma)
- residual low status attached to private business (but this has radically improved)
still murky
moreGet into the heads of some of China's successful entrepreneurs (and academics)
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