ABSTRACT
As one of the most enterprising minorities in Southeast Asia, the nature and
characteristics of Chinese entrepreneurship has been a subject of extensive
investigations (see, for example, Mackie 1992; Yeung and Olds 2000; Chan
2000; Gomez and Hsiao 2001; Menkhoff and Gerke 2002; Fong and Luk
2007). This line of research has laid a solid ground for an understanding of
Asian economic development. However, most of the empirical examples in
this literature are drawn either from the first generation of Chinese entre-
preneurs who emigrated to Southeast Asia prior to World War II and made their fortune either during the transition from colonialism to independence
and/or during the early phase of postcolonial regimes; or from second or
third generations of Chinese entrepreneurs who have already been assimi-
lated into the host societies. Such an emphasis reflects dominant academic
interests in the study of immigration in economics and sociology; the latter
has two central concerns: the determinants of migration and the adaptation
of immigrants to the receiving societies (Portes et al. 2002). Unfortunately,
the resultant dominant nation-state framework underlying this strand of stylized research has prevented a closer examination of the emerging trans-
national entrepreneurship and its linkages with the state and business net-
works under globalization (Liu 2006).
