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China’s business system and its future trajectory

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Abstract

We present a sketch of the existing Chinese business system and discuss what we see as the main challenges in its future evolution. We argue that China will probably retain its own unique form of capitalism rather than converge on any presently existing model. Though the future shape of this form is difficult to predict, the available theory and evidence suggest that the present South Korean business system is probably the closest equivalent among the existing major forms of capitalism to what the Chinese business system may look like in the next 10 or 20 years. We lay out implications of our arguments for future research, especially in the area of institutional comparative advantage.

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Notes

  1. One of the six configurations corresponds to Chinese capitalism and is thus not useful for our discussion. A second describes small European business, which we will subsume in the German case. A detailed exposition of the four systems used here is beyond the scope of this paper but can be found in Redding and Witt (2007).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. INSEAD, Boulevard de Constance, 77305, Fontainebleau Cedex, France

    Gordon Redding

  2. INSEAD, 1 Ayer Rajah Avenue, Singapore, 138676, Singapore

    Michael A. Witt

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  1. Gordon Redding
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Redding, G., Witt, M.A. China’s business system and its future trajectory. Asia Pac J Manag 26, 381–399 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10490-008-9126-z

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