| Description |
1 online resource (xii, 172 pages) : illustrations, maps |
| Series |
Routledge studies on Asia in the world |
|
Routledge studies on Asia in the world.
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| Contents |
Introduction: a relational approach of Chinese SOE globalization -- Retreat of the Chinese state: history of Chinese SOEs in West Africa -- African embeddedness and vulnerable Chinese -- African managers and workers: workforce localization and becoming a paternalistic employer -- Chinese expats: social promotion and localization in West Africa -- Competing for the "Chinese community": Chinese managerial agency -- Conclusion: second-class Chinese globalizations in West Africa |
| Summary |
This book investigates the globalization process of Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in West Africa, primarily in Benin and Ghana, based on ethnographical studies. It challenges the dominant vision of a powerful China in Africa and argues that the so-called Chinese business advantages - the monolithic Chinese state and Chinese low-cost advantages - are not viable for sustaining Chinese business development in the continent. Considering the Chinese SOE globalization process in a relational approach, this book examines how the triple embeddedness (Chinese, African and managerial) shapes the Chinese SOE globalization process over time and space, in diverse dimensions and among different entities - the Chinese state, Chinese SOEs, Chinese expatriates, the African government, African business partners, African staff and the African society. It illustrates that the Chinese central state has "retreated" deliberately from its SOE globalization in Africa. The Chinese SOEs and Chinese expats are the major actors in initiating and inventing globalization strategies, facing limited Chinese state support and the African neopatrimonial governance and social contexts. Besides, the personal trajectories (from expatriation to social promotion) of Chinese SOE expats interweave with the globalization-turn-localization of their SOEs in Africa. Rejecting the linear, static and binary vision of a powerful China in Africa, the present study thus emphasizes power dynamics in Chinese SOE globalization process that are organic and pluralistic. Time and local relations are key elements that constitute real Chinese advantages for Chinese SOEs vis-á-vis their ultimate competitors - not Western companies, but other Chinese companies. |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 156-165) and index |
| Subject |
Corporations, Chinese -- Africa, West.
|
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Government business enterprises -- China.
|
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Corporations, Foreign -- Africa, West.
|
| SUBJECT |
China -- Foreign economic relations http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh2008100092 -- Africa, West.
http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85001688
|
|
Africa, Western http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85001688 -- Foreign economic relations http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh00005782 -- China.
http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n79091151
|
| Form |
Electronic book
|
| ISBN |
9781315636627 (electronic bk.) |
|
131563662X (electronic bk.) |
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