ABSTRACT
The challenge of analysing management in China is affected by large influences which make its circumstances unique. In the first place change has been very fast. The period from 1980 — when private business was conducted furtively on pavements watching out for policemen, or in whispers between conspirators — to the point now — where it accounts for half the economy and where party membership is possible for business owners — has been a period of immense growth at blinding speed. This makes the economy a moving target as far as analysis is concerned. The second distinct feature is the persistent role of the state in the economy, reflection perhaps of a historical sense of state duty to maintain order. This means that market logics have so far played a muted role in much that has occurred. The third feature which singles out China from other nations is the legacy of a major social catastrophe — the Cultural Revolution — and its unvoiced influences on people's minds and attitudes, at least now among those who lived through it when they consider the thirty million who did not.
