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This thesis provides a theoretical foundation explaining the long-standing paradox of Chinese-Indonesian entrepreneurs' highly successful economic behaviour. Combining Western and Eastern philosophies, this study examines the role of culture in prescribing beliefs and practices that affect human efforts to self-actualise, notably the motivations underlying these entrepreneurs' business practices. It applies Aristotle's notion of phronesis (practical knowledge or wisdom) to organisation studies (as suggested by Tsoukas and Cummings, 1997, and Flyvbjerg, 2006). The enquiry employs the concept of self-organising systems (drawn from complexity theory) to ground the Confucian organismic conception of the cosmos (Needham 1956). The underlying empirical study investigated Chinese entrepreneurs' strategic actions in a particular field (Semarang, Central Java, Indonesia), an environment characterised by complexity, uncertainty and social instability. Primary data was collected through extensive field interviews, developed into narrative case studies and analysed using the explanation building technique (Yin 2003) based on Confucian modelling of social interactions to explain informants' trajectories in their life course. The findings support the Confucian organismic conception of the cosmos, which emphasises the notions of complexity, continuity, irreversibility and unpredictability. When the future is highly unpredictable, people learn and progress by recourse to learned strategies that were effective in their own adaptive success in the past. Especially when facing tension or instability, the studied entrepreneurs' decision making and strategic actions were spontaneous, without explicit predetermined goals, but based on their pragmatic value judgment, phronesis (practical knowledge) of a situation and the capability of the individual actors within their social networks to control it. When faced with a higher level of instability (especially under extreme constraints), their actions were instinctively revolutionary, often requiring a jump to a new level of network with higher complexity (Holland 1998), returning them to a normal condition. The entrepreneurs' wulun-based social roles and guanxi-based social institutions legitimised all such decisions. Their strategies were therefore contextual and pragmatic, driven by the actors' instinct to enhance the survivability of the individual, family and society. Chinese culture embraced the natural state of complexity, dynamism and unpredictability of the cosmos by establishing Confucian social institutions, specifically wulun and guanxi, that are learned and practiced from an early age and subsequently internalised as habitual and dispositional practices, including in business. Wulun functions as a social control mechanism for constraining people's behaviour and at the same time allowing people to increase their ability to adapt in order to self-organise in different contexts, whereas guanxi is practiced as a strategy to create a pool of interlocking resources that provides a feedback loop promoting continuous self-actualisation and self-transformation. Identity is associated with progression and transformation; when the self is developed, the family and the larger society are also transformed. The contribution of this thesis is its integration of Western and Eastern, natural and social, complexity theory and organisation studies concepts to illuminate the relationship between the self-actualising behaviour of entrepreneurs and the cultural context within which they operate. Keywords: phronesis, complexity, Confucianism, self-organisation, self-actualisation, wulun, guanxi, pragmatism

Thesis (Ph. D.)--West Virginia University, 1998. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains vi, 402 p. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 350-380).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 1995. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 287-309).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Hong Kong, 1995. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 287-309) Also available in print.

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This study examines the leading businessmen in Vancouver, British Columbia, from 1886 to 1914. Its purpose is to define the economic and social character of the top portion of the business community in early Vancouver, and to explore the process by .which this community was formed. The identities of businessmen associated with 'important' businesses operating in the city were determined at two different four-year points, from 1890 to 1893 and 1910 to 1913 to allow for an analysis of changes within the leadership group. A comprehensive examination of all businesses in Vancouver during the two periods in question was first undertaken before the 'relatively large' or 'important' businesses in Vancouver, and the businessmen associated with them, were identified. To facilitate a more Intensive analysis of the 66 and 276 'business leaders' chosen during the two periods, businessmen who had headed the few largest companies in the city were categorized into another, more select group called the 'business elite'. An additional sub-group of business leaders who had lived in Vancouver from 1910 to 1914 and had achieved a position of high social status in the city was defined as the 'social upper class'. The development of Vancouver's business community was closely linked to the changing character of the two principal economic systems which operated in coastal British Columbia between 1886 and 1914. While the C.P.R. was initially responsible for the emergence of Vancouver as a city in the 1880's, and while the C.P.R. was by far the most powerful business institution in the Terminal City during the decade after 1886, early Vancouver business leaders retained many ties with the maritime economic system, centered in Victoria, which remained predominant in coastal British Columbia into the late 1890's. Vancouver became a regional metropolitan centre, and its wholesalers and lumbermen finally emerged as the two most influential business groups in the city, only when the coastal region of the province became fully integrated, a decade after the arrival of the G.P.R., into a transcontinental system centered in eastern Canada. The continentalization of the provincial economy was matched by the Canadianization of Vancouver's business leadership at the turn of the century. Vancouver's leading businessmen were a distinctly regional business group. They had few ties with the business establishment of eastern Canada, either on the boards of national corporations or in the business and social clubs of the eastern elite. Most city ^enterprises operated within British Columbia alone, though lumber companies and several wholesale firms marketed products on the prairies. This regionalism found expression in particular in the structure of business in Vancouver, and in the types of economic activity that preoccupied city businessmen. Vancouver-centered businesses were small by national standards, and exhibited a simple form of internal organization based on the dominant proprietorship of one man, group of partners or family; this was the case despite the fact that most 'important' local businesses had been incorporated into limited liability companies by 1914. The individual entrepreneur owning his own company, rather than the finance capitalist or career bureaucrat, was still the most prominent type of business leader in Vancouver before the War. Particularly indicative of the regional character of business activity in Vancouver was the preoccupation of these entrepreneurs with speculation in, or the development of urban land and hinterland resources. National business trends had begun to influence the structure of business and the nature of business leadership in Vancouver by 1914, however. The consolidation of many small into a few large companies and the consequent internal bureaucratization of businesses was taking place in the resource industries of the province before the War; local companies were giving way to the branch offices of eastern-centered national corporations; and local representatives of national companies with major operations in Vancouver did tend to exert more influence in the city than did the average head of a local company. The social characteristics of Vancouver's top businessmen were less distinctive than their occupational concerns. More British than the city as a whole in the 1890's Vancouver's business leaders had by 1914 become more Canadian; in both periods the business community was solidly Anglo-Saxon and Protestant. Business leaders' backgrounds conformed generally to a pattern now familiar in the historical literature on business elites at the turn of the century in both the United States and Canada. Leading businessmen in Vancouver, like business elites elsewhere, were a privileged group, coming from backgrounds of much greater economic and social advantage than the population as a whole. While economic mobility was slightly higher among the top businessmen in Vancouver before 1914 than among the elites at the national level, the career patterns of Vancouver business leaders was not characterized by dramatic 'rags-to-riches' mobility. In addition, status mobility did not conform exactly to economic mobility in Vancouver. While becoming a member of the city's economic elite did ease the way to inclusion into Vancouver's emerging 'social upper class' before 1914, the business leaders who were accepted into the inner circles of Vancouver 'society' were even more likely than successful businessmen to have come from privileged economic and social backgrounds. / Arts, Faculty of / History, Department of / Graduate

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Ho Sau-san and Leung Wing-kee. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1990. / Bibliography: leaves 72-73. / ABSTRACT --- p.ii / TABLE OF CONTENTS --- p.iii / LIST OF TABLES --- p.v / ACKNOWLEDGMENTS --- p.vi / Chapter / Chapter I --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Chapter II --- BACKGROUND --- p.2 / Economic and Political Relationship Between Hong Kong and China --- p.2 / Political Unrest in China --- p.3 / Hong Kong Manufacturers' Attitudes --- p.3 / Garment and Electronic Industry --- p.4 / Chapter III --- STRUCTURED AND UNSTRUCTURED INTERVIEWS --- p.7 / "Unstructured Interviews with Investment Advisors, General Traders" --- p.7 / Structured Interviews with Top Executives of the Glorious Sun Group --- p.9 / Structured Interviews with Director of Gold Peak Industries (Holdings) Ltd. - Chairman of the Electronics Sector in the Federation of Industries 1987-1988 --- p.10 / Chapter IV --- LITERATURE SURVEY --- p.13 / Definition of Political Risk --- p.13 / Measuring Political Risk --- p.14 / Classification of Political Risk --- p.15 / Managing Political Risk --- p.17 / Chapter V --- THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK --- p.20 / Chapter VI --- HYPOTHESIS --- p.23 / Chapter VII --- RESEARCH DESIGN DETAILS --- p.26 / Type and Nature of Study --- p.26 / Study Setting and Time Horizon --- p.26 / Unit of Analysis --- p.26 / Chapter VIII --- POPULATION AND SAMPLE --- p.28 / Chapter IX --- SAMPLING METHOD --- p.30 / Chapter X --- DATA COLLECTION METHOD --- p.32 / Method --- p.32 / Questionnaire Design --- p.32 / Procedures --- p.34 / Results of Pretest --- p.34 / Revision to the Method of Data Collection --- p.35 / Chapter XI --- INTERVIEW RESULTS --- p.37 / Chapter XII --- ANALYSIS OF RESULTS --- p.40 / Difference in Strategies Pursued between the Garment and Electronics Industries --- p.40 / Difference between Short Term and Long Term Strategies --- p.44 / Difference in Strategies between Small and Large Manufacturers --- p.46 / Chapter XIII --- GENERAL ATTITUDES OF HONG KONG MANUFACTURERS TOWARDS POLITICAL RISK --- p.48 / One-country Two-systems Concept --- p.48 / """Open Door"" Policy of China" --- p.48 / Special Situation of China --- p.48 / Transfer Risk --- p.50 / Chapter XIV --- WHAT BUSINESS STRATEGIES HOHG KONG MANUFACTURERS WILL PURSUE --- p.51 / Problems or Difficulties Faced by Hong Kong Electronics Manufacturers --- p.51 / Strategies to be. Pursued by Hong Kong Electronics Manufacturers --- p.51 / Problems or Difficulties Faced by Hong Kong Garment Manufacturers --- p.53 / Strategies to be pursued by Hong Kong Garment Manufacturers --- p.53 / Chapter XV --- CONCLUSIONS --- p.55 / APPENDIX --- p.60 / BIBLIOGRAPHY --- p.72

With the growing importance being placed on the small business environment as having a positive influence on economic growth and vitality (Erwee, 1987: Burns & Dewhurst, 1989), there has been a corresponding increase in attention being paid to entrepreneurship and the characteristics of the entrepreneur. This increased attention is due to the fact that entrepreneurs have long been linked to small business creation and recognised as an important factor in the small business development process (Boyd & Gumpert, 1983). Despite the quantity of research on entrepreneurship, there appears to be an ongoing controversy oyer what characterises an entrepreneurial business. and the specific characteristics of the small business entrepreneur. It has been argued that although there is an overlap between entrepreneurial and non-entrepreneurial businesses. they are in fact different entities (Carland, Hoy, Boulton & Carland, 1984: Drucker, 1985), and that not every individual who starts a business is an entrepreneur (Drucker. 1985). Small business entrepreneurship has been found to be specifically related to the psychological characteristics of the owner-manager who controls the business (Miller. 1983). The purpose of this research was to identify and describe psychological characteristics displayed by a group of South African small business entrepreneurs, thereby compiling a psychological profile of the small business entrepreneur. Given the nature of entrepreneurial activities and processes, Hofer and Bygrave (1992) recommend that accurate, precise qualitative data that is rich in its descriptive characterisation of the situation and the phenomenon involved be collected. As a result the researcher used qualitative rather than quantitative methods of investigation. Innovative behaviour has long been linked to entrepreneurship (Schumpeter. 1934) and entrepreneurial businesses were distinguished from other small businesses by their use of innovative strategic practices. Two sample groups consisting of entrepreneurial and non-entrepreneurial businesses, were created and the data collected were analysed independently. The results, based on personal interviews with 32 small business owner-managers and the administration and interpretation of tihe Structured Objective Rorschach Test (SORT), indicate that small business entrepreneurship should not be used as a term synonymous with small business ownership and/or management. Despite similarities between small business entrepreneurs and other small business owner-managers. the results suggest that a distinction between the two groups is necessary for accurate future research on entrepreneurs. The entrepreneurs differed from other small business owner-managers in terms of their psychological characteristics including their motives, their perception and attitude towards the external environment, and various sociological factors. The entrepreneurial businesses were also different in that they were more innovative and growth oriented than the non-entrepreneurial businesses. The research contributes towards a clarification of the concept of small business entrepreneurship and indicates a need for more precise sampling techniques to be used in entrepreneurial research.