ABSTRACT
The above examples indicate clearly that overseas Chinese social organizations served as a central protection and enforcement mechanism for the business communities. Their well-established institutional linkages within the region of Southeast Asia and with the relevant organizations in qiaoxiang significantly facilitated this function. The existence of dense social/locality/kinship networks of interaction, in turn, helped reduce the costs of transacting, thus playing a major part in the development of economic ties between Southeast Asian Chinese and their hometowns. Seen from a theoretical perspective, Chinese associations assumed the role somewhat similar to the institutions such as courts, which constitute one of the three central components of ‘the social system’ that is essential to the proper working of the economic system.6
