Foreign

The starting point for this study is Haytonsreport for BIS (2015), whichdefines entrepreneurship
skills as identifying customer needs, technical or market opportunities, and pursuing
opportunities (Hayton, 2015, p. 3).He posits these entrepreneurship skills as part of a broader
set of leadership and management skills needed in SMEs. Hayton identifiesa positive
relationship between (self-reported) entrepreneurship skills and some measures of business
performance. Leadership skills and entrepreneurship skills combine to influence strategy
formalisation and responsiveness, factors that are positively associated with performance and
growth. The study also pinpointsself-reported deficiencies in entrepreneurship skills amongst a
long tail of survey respondents, suggesting that around 200,000 (16 per cent) of the UKs 5.2
million small businesses rate themselves below 3.4 on a 5-point scale for entrepreneurship skills.
One potential implication of these findings is that successful interventions to improve
entrepreneurship skills are likely to result in improved SME performance, not only among this
long tail but also among a wider group of SMEs for which self-reported
Zhangs market-research company helps the likes of General Motors, Nokia , Pepsico, Nestle ,
Wrigley and McCann Erickson tap into Chinas youth culture. Youthology has been profitable
since 2008 (five months after the company started) and is now gearing up to launch its own
social-networking platform to track opinions and trends of young people throughout China.
Wang is a start-up addict. In college, Wang founded Hotales.net, an online marketing site. After
six years at Microsoft he struck out on his own. In 2005 he launched Kijiji, eBays classifiedadvertising business in China, now with listings in more than 300 cities. Three years later Wang
spun off Baixing.com, an online community with listings for houses, jobs and second-hand
goods.
Small and medium enterprises have been booming in China since the initiation of the Open Door
Policy in 1978 (Shane, 2010). However, the Chinese has always been considered to be an
entrepreneurial race and Chinese entrepreneurialism is hardly a new phenomenon. It has been
widely acknowledged that the transformation of Hong Kong and Taiwan from colonial outposts
to global major manufacturing centres in the 1950s were fuelled by the arrivals of entrepreneurial
individuals from the mainland during and in the aftermaths of the civil war in the late 1940s
(Wong, 1988; Skoggard, 1996). Long before, adventurous Chinese have travelled and established
businesses all across the world. A century ago, Chinese restaurants were already a familiar sight
in major American and European cities such as San Francisco and Liverpool (Lee, 2001).
Chinese businesses have scattered around Southeast and central Asia along existing sea and land
trade routes looking for business opportunities for centuries (Mackie, 1992). However, the
entrepreneurialism of the Chinese is not limited to the episodes of overseas adventures.
Throughout the history, Chinese entrepreneurs had prospered in China both in time of prosperity
and during war and crisis. Besides historical and factual records, entrepreneurship is something
that is embedded in the Chinese culture, with entrepreneurs been widely portrayed as subjects of
art and literature. - See more at:
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That said, whilst the recent explosion of Chinese entrepreneurship has been a subject of great
interests to academics, journalists and policy makers alike, the earlier entrepreneurial episodes
have received nowhere near as much attention from the mainstream entrepreneurship and
management literature. A profession without memory can be said to be a profession of mad
people (Smith, 2007). Learning about entrepreneurship history allows entrepreneurs to learn
from both wisdom and mistakes in the past, as well as to understand the challenges faced by their
predecessors. It is therefore unsurprising that there is an increased recognition of the role of
history in examining entrepreneurship and various management disciplines (Mason and Harvey,
2013; Clark and Rowlinson, 2004). It is our intension to continue with this historic turn, by
examining the way in which Chinese entrepreneurs operate in a complete different time and
context to the modern generation. We believe that by scrutinising the previous entrepreneurship
experience of the Chinese, it would be possible to unveil significant insights that may be of
benefit to the current wave of Chinese entrepreneurism.
The Journal of Entrepreneurship in Emerging Economies (previously known as the Journal of
Chinese Entrepreneurship) is now calling for papers examining Chinese entrepreneurship in the
historical context. We define entrepreneurship not only as those who had started a business, but
also those who undertook entrepreneurial action within an organisational context, as well as
venture capitalists who had close dealing with entrepreneurs. We encourage submissions from an
interdisciplinary perspective to the topic, and therefore welcome contributions from not only
business and management, but also economics, sociology, human geography, development
studies, law, literature, as well as studies taken an interdisciplinary perspective. We expect
studies in this special issue would demonstrate a clear linkage to the theoretical concepts of
entrepreneurship, including but not limited to opportunity recognition, resources acquisition
strategies, network and social capital development, spatial agglomeration, and innovation
development.
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The central feature of Chinas transition from centrally planned economies the development of
the non-state sector private firms led by an emerging class of entrepreneurs. In 1978, the first
year of reform in China, the state sector accounted for over 90% of the countrys GDP; by 2005,
this had fallen to less than half (see Figure 1). Not all of Chinas growth achievements can be
attributed to entrepreneurs. Rural industries the township and village enterprises contributed a
growing proportion from the early 1980s onwards and accounted for nearly a third of GDP in the
mid-1990s. And foreign investors also played a role from around that time .But since the late
1990s; Chinas entrepreneurs have been the key driver of growth. They are the creators of the
de novo firms that are forming a dynamic and innovative private sector an essential force in
any developing country(see, for example, Wu, 2002, and Zhang et al, 2006

urban China in 2000 shed some light onthese questions.

The rise of Chinasentrepreneurial class

The dramatic growth in the share of s
elf-employed entrepreneurs in the Chineseworkforce is evident
from the mid-1990s(see Figure 2). It is most apparent in therural areas where there
were no
recordedprivate enterprises until 1994.The upward trend continues in urbanareas as in
the country
as a whole. But in rural areas, self-employment now seemsto be falling. Given the
massive migration
from rural to urban areas, this may well reflect the limited opportunities for rural
industries to develop when competing against the advantages of urban companies and
markets. Overall, the increase in entrepreneurship in China bodes well for sustained
economic growth. But the emergence of Chinas entrepreneurs has not been without
obstacles. By guaranteeing employment and providing social security in the absence of
a national safety net, the lifetime employment system in the state-owned enterprises
(known as the iron rice bowl) strongly discouraged urban workers from becoming selfemployed. Not until the dismantling of the employment system and the massive layoffs
accompanying the restructuring of state-owned enterprises in the mid-1990s did private
Chinese firms begin to flourish (Knight and Yueh, 2004). And by providing an
alternative source of employment and revenue, the emerging non-state sector has given
the government leeway in its efforts to downsize and reform state-owned enterprises
(Fan, 1994). Another institutional challenge faced by entrepreneurs has been limited
access to credit. A recent estimate by the first Chinese chief economist of the World
Bank suggests that out of 40 million small and medium-sized enterprises in China in
2006, less than half of 1% could obtain loans from banks (Lin, 2007). Aspiring
entrepreneurs have also faced a shortage of key assets such as land or property (the
property market did not develop until the late 1990s) and insecure property rights in a
system that did not protect private ownership officially until 2004. Having property in
China suggests being fairly well connected as urban (and, for the most part, rural) land
is state-owned and privatisation of land
and buildings has only begun recently. When the survey asked entrepreneurs why they
started their own business, 37%said that it was because they had the requisite skills
and experience, 17%
started a business by joining in with relatives, 11% had property and 7% had funds.
Comparing entrepreneursand non-entrepreneursSo which characteristics distinguish
entrepreneurs from non-entrepreneurs inChina? Comparing people who have started
their own business as their prima or secondary job with people who remain in paid
employment, the first notable.