Firm characteristics and informal governance of business operations in the Pearl River Delta, China

2Citations
Citations of this article
13Readers
Mendeley users who have this article in their library.

Abstract

This paper describes the Chinese economic and institutional reform process as a grad-ual transition of an informal, relation-based governance system into a more formal and rule-based governance system. The consequences of macro-level institutional reforms on the importance of personal relationships for the firm-level governance of business operations are discussed. Theor-etical considerations suggest that in a transition economy such as China companies' incentives to reduce the reliance on personal relationships should depend on firm characteristics such as the age, size and the internationalization of the firm. We confront these suppositions with empirical data obtained from a company survey performed among 222 companies in the electronics industry op-erating in the Pearl River Delta, China. From this we obtain some, though often weak, evidence in favor of the suppositions.

Cite

CITATION STYLE

APA

Bickenbach, F., & Liu, W. H. (2012). Firm characteristics and informal governance of business operations in the Pearl River Delta, China. Zeitschrift Fur Wirtschaftsgeographie. https://doi.org/10.1515/zfw.2012.0003

Register to see more suggestions

Mendeley helps you to discover research relevant for your work.

Already have an account?

Save time finding and organizing research with Mendeley

Sign up for free