ABSTRACT
Themes such as ethnic Chinese entrepreneurship and Asian business networks continue to be areas of immense interest both within and beyond Asia. In this book, which seeks to understand, broadly speaking, what makes the ethnic Chinese network capitalism tick, we discussed some of the socio-economic, cultural, historical and political implications of ethnic Chinese entrepreneurship and business connections in the age of globalization. We also attempted to re-examine some of the taken-for-granted assumptions about the unique characteristics, strengths and challenges of what has been termed “Chinese” capitalism, networks and business culture. This was done based on solid empirical data and mid-range theoretical constructs rather than on imagination or fiction. Besides identifying and addressing a couple of theoretical and empirical gaps in the literature on the subject matter, the chapters revealed the enormous differences among the ethnic Chinese in East and Southeast Asia in terms of their economic behavior depending on their nationality or land of adoption. This implies that the Chinese overseas cannot be treated all alike and that theses such as the emergence of a sort of Chinese commonwealth are highly questionable. Let us now briefly revisit, discuss and synthesize the various contributions.
