Comes the Southern Revolution: The Reframing of Chinese Shan-zhai Toward Identity Change

Abstract

Following the literature on entrepreneurial framing and identity change, we examined how Chinese shan-zhai phone entrepreneurs have drawn on their cultural resources to reframe their businesses to claim new identities and gain legitimacy over time. Through qualitative procedures, we found that a staged process of collective identity development underlies this entrepreneurial process, consisting of building (a) niche-market identity via pragmatic reframing, (b) socio-political identity via nationalistic reframing, and finally (c) professional identity via comprehensive reframing. There has also been a clear change in the sources of legitimacy from the indigenous market through the wider Chinese society to the more globally defined industry. Our central contribution is a processual model of identity change through cultural reframing specifically focused on how informal entrepreneurs grow into formalization and global competition.本研究依循創業賦名和身份轉變的文獻，探索中國山寨手機創業家們如何運用文化資源，持續重新對其事業賦名，並隨著時間的推演，逐步建立具正當性的新身份。透過質性研究方法，我們發現在這個創業的歷程中，存在著發展集體身份的三階段轉變，包含 (a) 藉由實用主義重新賦名，以建立利基市場身份；(b) 透過民族主義的重新賦名，以建立社會政治身份；以及 (c) 藉由全面的重新賦名，以建立專業身份。此外，賦予其正當性的來源也在不同的階段中有明顯的變化，從最初來自深圳本土的市場，逐步擴大至更廣泛的中國社會，最終涵蓋全球產業的範疇。本研究的主要貢獻乃是提出了一個透過文化重新賦名，以實現身份轉變的歷程模型，此模型特別強調非正式經濟體的創業家是如何經由文化歷程，逐步走向正規化並參與全球競爭。