Re: [spam?] Greg Chin's diss

[Stephen E Philion <philion@hawaii.edu>]

sure, that's a fair reading.

steve

----- Original Message -----
From: Jonathan Lassen <jlassen@clarku.edu>
Date: Saturday, August 28, 2004 1:39 pm
Subject: Re: [spam?] Greg Chin's diss

> Steve,
> 
> It's a little hard to compare the two findings this way, I think, 
> since Greg
> based his conclusions on joint ventures, while Hassard et al look 
> exclusively at
> large SOEs. I see only complementarity between the two conclusions.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Jonathan
> 
> On Sat, 28 Aug 2004 12:57 , Stephen E Philion <philion@hawaii.edu> 
> sent:
> >
> >Using more data than Greg accessed, Hassard et al came to a different
> >conclusion:
> >
> >Policing the Slow Commotion:
> >Corporate Transformation and Its Consequences in the Chinese 
> State-owned
> >Steel Industry
> >
> >Abstract 
> >	The Chinese economic reform process of the last two decades has
> >engendered significant changes in the structure and management of
> >large-scale work organizations. Central to the reform process has 
> been>the “corporatization” of large state-owned enterprises 
> (SOEs). This
> >article examines the progress made in the most recent round of
> >state-enterprise reform in China - the introduction of the Modern
> >Enterprise System and Group Company System experiments. This reform
> >program is intended, by 2010, to transform 156 of China's largest 
> SOEs>into internationally competitive corporations which, while still
> >remaining in overall state ownership, will more closely resemble 
> typical>Western corporations in their structures and processes, 
> with Boards of
> >Directors accountable to shareholders rather than being subject 
> to the
> >political authority of the Chinese Communist Party. Drawing 
> primarily on
> >interview data from three rounds of field visits to eight SOEs in the
> >steel industry, we assess the extent to which three key goals of the
> >reform process - reducing government interference in the running of
> >SOEs, improving managerial competence, and achieving cost 
> reductions and
> >productivity improvements through large-scale workforce 
> reductions -
> >have been achieved in the present reform-induced climate of labor 
> unrest>and incipient political instability. We argue that, to 
> date, the
> >majority of SOEs in our sample appear unable to achieve much more 
> than>reform internally, as far as they are able, whilst waiting 
> for movement
> >in the political-institutional environment that will allow them to
> >embark on more far-reaching phases of corporate change. On 
> analysing the
> >apparent inability of our SOEs to embrace reform, we highlight the
> >influence of two factors - the failure of ministries to produce firm
> >strategies for channelling surplus labor and the inability of 
> government>agencies to offer a sense of managerial autonomy to SOE 
> executives.>Overall we identify problems inherent in managing, or 
> perhaps better
> >policing, this slow experimental process, and focus on the principal
> >question to arise from it: how best to handle the surplus labor 
> problem?    
> >
> >
> >
> 
> 
> 
> 
>