ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the history of Chinese enterprise from a variety of historical sources such as company archives, legal records, local gazetteers, biographical materials, family instructions, novels, memoirs, personal letters, diaries, genealogies, missionary records, and foreign affairs documents. New archival sources are also being discovered all the time. The goal of the chapter is to review recent trends in enterprise case studies and introduces the sources and archives for the study of modern Chinese enterprise history. It illustrates the connection between these archival sources and some possible research topics in Chinese business history. The chapter describes the major archives for the study of Chinese business history. Since many successful businessmen who formerly operated businesses in China are still active, future research methodology may combine both archival and library research with interviews of Chinese businessmen in Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, the United States, or Australia.
