The browser you are using is not supported by this website. All versions of Internet Explorer are no longer supported, either by us or Microsoft (read more here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/windows/end-of-ie-support).

Please use a modern browser to fully experience our website, such as the newest versions of Edge, Chrome, Firefox or Safari etc.

Network Effects, Cooperation and Entrepreneurial Innovation in China

På svenska

Author

  • Sonja Opper
  • Victor Nee

Summary, in English

The rapid rise of an innovative private manufacturing economy in China challenges standard economic explanations of growth, which typically assume the existence of well-defined formal institutions such as property rights and company laws safeguarding investor and creditor interests. We highlight the social structure of cooperation that enables innovative activity in private manufacturing firms when formal property rights protection remains weak. We show how network effects linked to inter-firm cooperation in industrial clusters allowed private entrepreneurs to quickly develop reliable business norms to reduce the inherent risk of malfeasance and contract breach in formal and informal collaborative efforts. Survey data from a sample of 700 manufacturing firms located in China’s Yangzi Delta region confirms that both formal and informal types of inter-firm collaboration are effective, though in different areas of innovative activity.

Publishing year

2015

Language

English

Pages

283-302

Publication/Series

Asian Business & Management

Volume

14

Issue

4

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Palgrave Macmillan

Topic

  • Economics and Business

Keywords

  • China
  • informal cooperation
  • formal R&D agreements
  • entrepreneurship
  • innovation
  • network effects

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1476-9328