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by Ngan Nga Wing. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 220-236). / Abstract also in Chinese. / Abstract --- p.i / Acknowledgments --- p.iii / Table of Contents --- p.iv / List of Tables --- p.xi / List of Figures --- p.xiii / List of Abbreviations --- p.xiv / Chapter CHAPTER ONE --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Background --- p.1 / Context of the Study --- p.2 / Ethnic Chinese and Their Business --- p.2 / Ethnic Chinese and Homeward Investment --- p.4 / Guanxi and the Contemporary Socialist China --- p.5 / The Notion of Guanxi and Instrumental Relationships --- p.7 / Area of Study --- p.10 / Physical Environment of Fuj ian Province --- p.10 / Economic Development Since 1949 --- p.10 / "Reasons of Selecting Jinjiang, Fujian " --- p.11 / Objectives of the Study --- p.12 / A Brief of the Thesis --- p.13 / Chapter CHAPTER TWO --- METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES --- p.14 / Introduction --- p.14 / Research Designs And Methods --- p.15 / Choice of the Method-Qualitative Method --- p.15 / Data Collection From Human Resources --- p.20 / Purposive and Emergent Sampling --- p.21 / Data Collection in the Field --- p.22 / In-depth Interviews --- p.23 / Group Interviews --- p.26 / Participant Observation --- p.28 / Secondary Data in the Field --- p.29 / Some Critical Reflection in the Field --- p.30 / Data Collection From Non-human Resources --- p.32 / Inductive Data Analysis --- p.33 / Categorization --- p.33 / Triangulation --- p.34 / Network Analysis --- p.35 / Case Reporting --- p.36 / Tape Recording --- p.37 / Verbatim --- p.38 / Narrative --- p.38 / Validity And The Issue Of Subjectivity --- p.39 / Summary --- p.41 / Chapter CHAPTER THREE --- ETHNIC CHINESE AND THEIR BUSINESS CULTURE --- p.42 / Introduction --- p.42 / Economic Success of Ethnic Chinese --- p.43 / Hostile Business Environments --- p.45 / Political Environment --- p.45 / Restriction of the Scope of Economic Activities --- p.47 / Restriction on Capital Participation of Ethnic Chinese --- p.49 / Restriction of Governing Labour by Ethnic Chinese --- p.50 / Other Discriminatory Treatment Against Ethnic Chinese --- p.51 / Chinese Culture And Capitalism --- p.53 / Confucian Value System --- p.55 / Confucianism and Ethnic Chinese Entrepreneurs --- p.57 / Ethnic Chinese Business Culture --- p.59 / The Concept of Family --- p.59 / Family and Ethnic Chinese Business --- p.60 / Characteristics of Family-oriented Firms --- p.61 / Kin Groups and Association --- p.64 / Types of Kin's Groups and Association --- p.64 / Functions of the Kin's Groups and Associations --- p.66 / "Networks, Trust and Guanxi " --- p.68 / The Cultural Trait of Networks Among Ethnic Chinese --- p.68 / Trust --- p.70 / Guanxi --- p.72 / Ethnic Chinese Homeward Investment --- p.76 / Spatial Hurdles in Homeward Investment --- p.77 / Weak Legal Framework --- p.77 / Poor Quality of Bureaucrats --- p.79 / The Prevalence of Guanxi --- p.80 / How Do Ethnic Chinese Do to Overcome the Problems? --- p.81 / Summary --- p.84 / Chapter CHAPTER FOUR --- NETWORKS AND ETHNIC FUJIANESE ENTREPRENEURS --- p.85 / Introduction --- p.85 / Networks and Investment --- p.86 / Types Of Networks --- p.88 / The Nature of Networks --- p.89 / Extra-firm Networks --- p.89 / Intra-firm Networks --- p.93 / Entrepreneurship --- p.96 / Inter-firm Networks --- p.97 / Kinship --- p.97 / Friendship --- p.99 / Friendship is More Important than Kinship --- p.101 / Motivations of Cultivating Networks --- p.104 / Extra-firm Networks --- p.104 / Weak Legal Framework --- p.105 / Flimsy Bureaucratic System --- p.107 / Greater Autonomy of Local Authority --- p.107 / Intra-firm Networks and Inter-firm Networks --- p.110 / Ancestral Ties and Emotional Linkages --- p.110 / Personal Trust and Reciprocal Obligation --- p.112 / Cultural Affinity --- p.113 / Complex Sentiment --- p.114 / Mechanisms of Network Building --- p.115 / Extra-firm Networks --- p.115 / Power rather than Monetary Relationships --- p.115 / Proprietary Rights --- p.116 / Social and Political Legitimacy --- p.117 / Intra-firm Networks --- p.118 / Utilitarianistic Familism --- p.118 / Entrepreneurial Familism --- p.121 / Inter-firm Networks --- p.122 / Blood Relationship of Kinship --- p.123 / The Role of Intermediary --- p.124 / Reciprocity and Obligations of Friends --- p.126 / Benefits of Building Networks --- p.127 / Extra-firm Networks --- p.127 / Access to Profit --- p.129 / Access to Protection --- p.130 / Intra-firm Networks --- p.132 / Reliable Management --- p.133 / Fast Decision Making --- p.134 / Personal Achievement --- p.134 / Inter-firm Networks --- p.136 / Obtaining Information --- p.136 / Minimizing Risk --- p.137 / Mutual Exchange --- p.138 / Summary --- p.139 / Chapter CHAPTER FIVE --- ENTREPRENEURS AND GUANXI --- p.141 / Introduction --- p.141 / Dimensions of Personal Relations --- p.142 / Rural Vs Urban --- p.142 / Sentimental Relations Vs Instrumental Relationship --- p.145 / Guanxi Mentality Vs Economic Mentality --- p.147 / Reciprocity (Bao) Vs Corruption/Bribery --- p.148 / Elements of Guanxi Management --- p.150 / Sameness --- p.151 / Familiarity --- p.152 / Trust --- p.154 / Social Obligation and Reciprocity --- p.155 / The Tactics of Cultivating Guanxi --- p.157 / Gift-giving --- p.157 / Money-giving --- p.161 / Banquets --- p.163 / Achieved Familiarity by an Intermediary --- p.165 / Employment and Partnership --- p.167 / Entrepreneurs Need Certain Technical Skill --- p.172 / Awareness of Guanxi --- p.172 / Understand the Guanxi Cultivating Process --- p.173 / Impacts of Guanxi --- p.174 / "Ability to Identify, Design and Implement Guanxi Cultivation " --- p.175 / Knowledge of Management Techniques --- p.177 / Attitudes and Performance of Entrepreneurs in Guanxi Cultivating --- p.179 / Proactive --- p.179 / Reactive --- p.182 / Resistive --- p.185 / Characteristics of Firms With Successful Strategies --- p.189 / Strong Entrepreneurship --- p.189 / Strong Personal Networks --- p.191 / Good Family Networks --- p.193 / Local Professionals --- p.194 / Strong Financial Back Up --- p.195 / Summary --- p.198 / Chapter CHAPTER SIX --- CONCLUSION AND REFLECTIONS --- p.200 / Homeward Investment by Ethnic Fujianese in Fujian: Summary of Finding --- p.200 / Reflections --- p.203 / Reflections from Informant Entrepreneurs --- p.203 / Personal Reflections --- p.209 / Contribution of the Study --- p.210 / Direction for Future Study --- p.211 / Appendix I In-depth Interviews with Ethnic Fujianese Entrepreneurs --- p.213 / Appendix II In-depth Interviews with Government Officials --- p.215 / Glossary --- p.216 / Bibliography --- p.220

Given unprecedented shifts in the U.S. demography marked by rapid growth in Hispanic, Asian and other ethnic market segments, marketing scholars and practitioners are confronting ways to cultivate ethnic consumers' brand preference formation, retail patronage and their ensuring consumption choices. Food is cited as a common signifier for consumers’ ethnic/cultural identity because food itself is a cultural symbol. However, little research has examined the influences of ethnic identities on consumers’ patronage behaviors of ethnic-themed restaurants. Thus, this dissertation critically explores the impact of ethnic identity and motivational factors to better understand consumers' choices of ethnic-themed restaurants with a mix-method approach. The present research investigates how ethnic identity and consumers’ need for uniqueness interplay with perceived authenticity in consumers’ patronage intention of ethnic-themed restaurants. The findings advocate the interplay among ethnic identity, consumers’ need for uniqueness, and perceived authenticity of general consumers in decision making choices of patronizing ethnic-themed restaurants. The findings have important implications for market segmentation guiding the owners of ethnic-themed restaurant the choice of environmental cues to encourage patronage intentions among general consumers. Furthermore, this study provides additional insights about motivating factors affecting decision making of patronizing ethnic-themed restaurants and contributes to the stream of research by enhancing understanding of marketing ethnic-themed restaurant in a multi-cultural society.

This dissertation consists of three essays that explore the interplay between economic shocks and local context. The first chapter studies the role of Korea's unique social fractionalization in explaining a 60% growth in agricultural productivity during the 1970s. Social fractionalization along dimensions like ethnicity or class can stunt economic development. This paper investigates how fractionalization affects a group's ability to respond to economic shocks by studying rural South Korea in the 1970s. Social groups in rural Korea were defined by one dominant characteristic: extended kin network identified by family name. Some villages displayed high homogeneity, with up to 90% of households sharing the same family name. This unique social context offers a reliable measure of social fractionalization that is otherwise difficult to measure. I combine this cross-sectional variation with the time variation in market access created by the construction of a new bridge, the Namhae bridge, in 1973. I find that homogeneous villages displayed higher agricultural investments and productivity growth than heterogeneous villages following the bridge construction. Homogeneous villages capitalized on the opportunities created by the bridge by providing complementary local public goods more effectively than heterogeneous villages. This paper highlights the critical role of social homogeneity in enhancing a community's ability to capitalize on new opportunities in the face of external shocks, such as improved market access. In the second chapter, I investigate the impact of expanding access to education on the quality of pre-existing schools, using India's Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) national secondary school construction program as a case study. I use a difference-in-differences strategy to assess the effects of new school construction on existing schools' enrollment, facilities, and the number of students taking and passing the nationally administered exam at grade ten and twelve. The analysis utilizes school-level data from the Secondary Education Management Information System (SEMIS) database, which tracks all secondary schools in India between 2009 and 2020. I find that while opening new schools increases the number of students taking and passing exams, it does not necessarily lead to improvements in the quality of education, as measured by the proportions of students taking and passing exams. This suggests that constructing new schools alone may not be enough to enhance educational quality through increased competition, and other factors or interventions may be necessary. This paper highlights the potential trade-off between expanding access to education and maintaining the quality of education provided by pre-existing schools. In the third chapter, I empirically test ``learning-by-exporting'' by examining the long-term performance of Indian IT firms after their exposure to the temporary export shock created by the Y2K bug. The Y2K bug was a computer software glitch that misinterpreted the year 2000 as 1900 due to the widespread use of two-digit date representations in computer systems at the time. As the new millennium approached, concerns grew that this programming oversight would lead to widespread system failures and potential global disruptions. This uncertainty prompted extensive efforts to identify and fix potential issues before 2000, resulting in a surge in outsourcing to Indian IT companies. However, by the year 2000, concerns proved to be largely overstated as few major problems materialized. This event represented an unexpected yet short-lived export boom for Indian IT firms. I use two exposure measures: IT firms with a history of exporting before 2000 and the Bartik instrument, which leverages regional variation in IT sector employment share. Overall, I find that exposure to the Y2K export shock had a positive and statistically significant effect on the long-term performance of Indian IT firms, supporting the concept of ``learning-by-exporting.'' Event study analysis shows that firms exposed to the Y2K shock experienced improvements in sales, export share, and total compensation paid to employees. However, the 2SLS results using the Bartik instrument reveal statistically insignificant findings, suggesting a potential weak instrument problem. This highlights the need for more accurate measures of Y2K shock exposure and further exploration of alternative estimation strategies.