Overseas Chinese Management Style: Some Reflections

Abstract

With the exception of Japan and Korea, in East Asia many of the businesses are owned and managed by the so-called overseas Chinese. This group of ethnic Chinese, about 55 million strong, has been the economic driving force of their adopted homelands for the past few decades. If this group is considered as a single economic entity, it could rank as the third largest economy in the world, behind only the USA and Japan. In Indonesia and the Philippines, ethnic Chinese account for 3.0 and 1.5 per cent, respectively, of the population but control a significant majority of the economic output. The numbers are less dramatic in Thailand and Malaysia, but the economic influence of the overseas Chinese is still disproportional to their numbers. Powerful as the group may be, there is very little understanding of what makes it so successful. Did the overseas Chinese succeed because of a particular management style, or is their success a result of circumstances? Over the years, a number of books have been written on the networks of these people; Gordon Redding’s well-known The Spirit of Chinese Capitalism comes to mind. Invariably, the authors have been outsiders looking behind what some call the bamboo curtain.