ABSTRACT
Entrepreneurship thrives in "external China". In Hong Kong, Taiwan and other overseas Chinese communities, family firms undertake economic innovations and compete fiercely with one another. Their collective strength is derived from private initiative, not from government patronage or planning, and on the whole they are strong in entrepreneurship but weak in management. Such a pattern of entrepreneurship was virtually nonexistent in the People's Republic of China before 1979. Economic innovation during the Maoist era assumed a different form. The chapter argues that the economic dynamism found in postwar Hong Kong is propelled by the cultural values of: pragmatism, familism, autonomy, and personal trust. The cultural values are translated into entrepreneurial acts by a carrier stratum of change agents. The chapter shows that the economic miracle occurring in the PRC is the product of a dynamic blending of two patterns of Chinese entrepreneurship.
