State monopoly, Chinese style : a case study of the tobacco industry

Adopting a historical institutionalist approach, this study focuses on the tobacco industry as a case study to explore why competition would happen in this state-monopoly regime from its outset and how it evolved during the past three decades in China. I argue that the emergence of competition in the tobacco state monopoly resulted from a particular industrial governance pattern, which formed up incrementally and became strengthened via interactions between local governments and the local agents of China’s National Tobacco Corporation (CNTC). As the institutional settings where local governments and the CNTC’s local agents were embedded changed, the governance pattern and the resulting competition type continually transformed over three distinctive phases: quasi-free competition under the two-track system (1982-1993), restrained competition under prevalent local protectionism (1994-2004), and quasi-oligopoly competition under the central-led competitive monopoly (2005-2012). Tracing the development of the three phases discloses not only how local governments have already become the de facto agents for serving the CNTC but also how this circumstance has indirectly strengthened the control capacity of the monopoly, thus reinforcing and intensifying state control and the competition alike. The “state monopoly, Chinese style” was thus formed in this context.the KNAW China Exchange Program (the Netherlands), the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, the Academia Sinica (Taiwan), and the Ministry of Education (Taiwan)Asian Studie

An analysis of China's industrial cluster(Zhejiang province pattern): historical development, questions and prospective in pursuit of sustainable competitive advantage-the case of Datang and Sassuolo

The intention of this paper is to analyze this phenomenon from the development, characteristics, drivers and problems of industrial clusters in the province of Zhejing, China by comparing two clusters: Datang hosiery cluster and Sassuolo ceramic tiles cluster--which is a prototype of successful industrial cluster from developed country. This comparative method helps understand that in many ways, the Zhejiang districts appear to have many similarities with the development observed in the 3rd Italy; however, we can distinguish the features and dissimilarities between these two types of clusters – the very structure factors that render the clusters highly specific. Finally, this paper will also point out some server problems of Chinese industrial cluster, which all will be helpful for us to know the situation of China SME industrial clusters. Further more, this study is carried on finally to explore the problem resolution of the clusters in pursuit of sustainable competitive advantages in order to cope with the dual challenge of knowledge creation/innovation and globalization

Creative small settlements. Culture-based solutions for local sustainable development.

Culture can play a fundamental role in fostering sustainable patterns of urban and regional development. This is the message of the Global Report ‘Culture for Sustainable Urban Development’, which UNESCO has coordinated for the UN-HABITAT III Conference (Quito, October 2016). The Global Report shows that a promising culture-based vision of urban development is flourishing in different forms in several cities across the world. Even small and medium settlements located at the periphery of large cities or within their metropolitan areas, and normally associated with marginalisation or deprivation, have the potential to fully utilise their cultural resources, in both tangible (urban and architectural heritage, cultural infrastructure, etc.) and intangible form (skills, knowledge, competencies). However these small settlements, and their respective communities, require different analytical tools in order to understand their complexity and ad hoc policies to manage their assets in sustainable forms. This research report aims to show ways to understand culture and creativity in small settlements, by collecting a series of international case studies that form the backbone of the chapter 10 of the UNESCO Global Report on urban-rural linkages and titled 'Culture as a tool to achieve harmonious territorial development'. This can allow a wider dissemination of the theoretical underpinnings and the comparative findings of a research conducted during 2015 and 2016 by several research units all over the world

An institutional approach to the development of the textile and clothing clusters in China: the case of Zhejiang Province

China has now become the largest producer and exporter of textile and clothing products in the world. The objective of this research is to explore the relationship between the complicated interactive process of institutional change and the development of industrial clusters in China. It focuses on the distinctive institutional factors that have allowed the textile and clothing clusters in China to benefit from globalisation while those in other transitional economies have not done so. The research also aims to make a thorough investigation into how the dynamic change of the public-private interface has influenced the development and upgrading of the textile and clothing clusters in contemporary China-in-transition, with all the political and social implications that the process entails. The research mainly uses the New Institutional Economics Approach (NIE) and gives weight to institutional change through multiple case studies of textile and clothing clusters in Zhejiang province, East China. The micro case studies are effective in illustrating the interaction between institutional change and industrial development. The research argues that the unique institutional factors leading to the rapid development of textile and clothing clusters in China include hybrid ownership, public entrepreneurship and the specialised wholesale market. The research has also shown that the theory of local state corporatism alone fails to explain the great success of textile and clothing clusters in China. The development and upgrading of textile and clothing clusters in China has witnessed extraordinary institutional change through co-evolution between the public sector and the private sector, which can be reflected through the interaction among social networks, entrepreneurship and performance of local government. The flexibility in the public-private interface is one unique endogenous institutional arrangement embedded in the economic system in China. It is a dynamic process of institutional embeddedness, deembeddedness and reembeddedness with a diversity of economic regimes coexisting at different hierarchies of governmen

地域属性が人材に与える魅力の評価に関する研究--大学卒業生、起業家、観光客に対するコンジョイント分析の適用

The main purpose of this research is to promote regional economic development through the introduction of talents and new technological innovations. A constant supply of novel ideas and contributions from all economic sectors is required to further the sustainable development of regional economic. Therefore, there is a growing need for talents and innovation to activate the regional development. Improving urban environmental attributes has been proved as a efficient approach to attract graduates from Northeastern China and water pollution was the most critical attribute with the highest relative importance (43.6%). Similarly, it was explored that entrepreneurs’ preferences on entrepreneurial ecosystem which is always regard as a special kind of region located in a city. Small and medium-sized enterprises are willing to give up funding subsidies to start businesses in areas with high per capita deposits. On the contrary, large companies will choose areas with high government subsidies to establish companies.北九州市立大

New Wenzhou: Migration, Metropolitan Spatial Development and Modernity in a Third-tier Chinese Model City

Migration has asserted great influence on urban spatial structure, especially during China’s recent waves of rural-to-urban migration. This dissertation focuses on Wenzhou, a third-tier Chinese city that served as a national model for the re-introduction of small-scale private enterprise in the 1990s. Wenzhou’s economic success generated migration that has served as a catalyst for new forms of urbanization in which migrants play a central role. I aim to examine and understand the distribution patterns of migrant settlements, their changes over time and the ways that the formation of these settlements has impacted emerging urban form. There are two primary components in this study: a broad-scale comparative study of the formation and location of migrant settlements based on census data and existing studies of Beijing and Guangzhou, and a fine-scale, survey- and interview-based analysis of a case-study migrant settlement. Using data drawn from the 2000 and 2010 population censuses, the city-scale analysis finds that Wenzhou’s migrant settlements, which are dominated by manufacturing workers, are spatially linked to patterns of industrial development. Thus the city’s industrial development strategies have had a direct influence on the location, formation, and characteristics of migrant settlements. This is a direct contrast to the spatial formation of migrant settlements in Beijing and Guangzhou, where factors such as the location of village-held land and place-of-origin linked migrant settlements have been more important. Further analysis uses the classic “concentric zone model” as a baseline for understanding the differing dynamics of migrant settlements in contemporary Chinese cities. Drawing from a survey of 435 migrants and 20 in-depth interviews in Shuangyu, Wenzhou, this dissertation further reveals the residential and activity space in migrant settlements, the daily life of migrants and how they connect with the other parts of the city. The findings address the social and spatial isolation of migrant settlements from the other parts of the city, contributing to the formation of “city within a city”. This new kind of urban space constitutes a significant new “assemblage” in Wenzhou’s evolving urban form, and challenges the generalizations often made on the basis of the experience of migration in Beijing and Guangzhou

Competition and Cooperation in Economics and Business

Asia and the Pacific have become the growth engine of the world economy with the contribution of two-third of the global growth. The book discusses current issues in economics, business, and accounting in which economic agents, as individuals, entrepreneurs and professionals, as well as countries in the Asia and Pacific regions compete and collaborate with each other and with the rest of the globe. Areas covered in the book include economic development and sustainability, labor market competition, Islamic economic and business, marketing, finance, accounting standard compliances, and taxation. It will help shed light on what business and economic scholars in regions have done in terms of research and knowledge development, as well as the new frontiers of research that have been explored and opening up

Competition and Cooperation in Economics and Business

Asia and the Pacific have become the growth engine of the world economy with the contribution of two-third of the global growth. The book discusses current issues in economics, business, and accounting in which economic agents, as individuals, entrepreneurs and professionals, as well as countries in the Asia and Pacific regions compete and collaborate with each other and with the rest of the globe. Areas covered in the book include economic development and sustainability, labor market competition, Islamic economic and business, marketing, finance, accounting standard compliances, and taxation. It will help shed light on what business and economic scholars in regions have done in terms of research and knowledge development, as well as the new frontiers of research that have been explored and opening up

Community in Chinese Street Music: Sound, Song and Social Life

Jiqing guangchang is a form of amateur music performance event in Wuhan, a major city in central China. Groups of singers take turns to perform well-known Chinese popular songs for a few hours each afternoon and evening in squares, on street corners, and in parks around the city. Audiences take an active part by offering performers cash tips. Certain discourses surrounding contemporary urban life have portrayed experiences with popular music in these modern city contexts as distant from communal meaning. My ethnography of these performances and their surrounding social worlds is geared towards assessing the significance of community here, while also contributing to an understanding of the notion in contemporary urban China. Musical activity in jiqing guangchang is mundane, mainstream and rarely inspires fervent commitment or responses from participants. I analyse material from its spatial and sonic, economic, performative and social sides to look beyond understandings of community that are based on ideologies of kinship and belonging. I develop the discussion towards community’s embodied and material-level foundations, manifest in the mutual orientation and coexistence strategies of participants, their modes of sociability, and the designation and sharing of social territories. Thus, various limitations in current discourses of music and community can be transcended, particularly those tied to binary understandings of community’s position in relation to society, individualism, and several other key concepts. I aim to highlight that in contemporary urban situations, music’s ability to engender collective meaning is not only tied to ritualised contexts or those where divisive identity issues are prominent. Instead, my analysis of jiqing guangchang brings to the fore underlying and everyday modes of collective engagement that may be of deep-seated significance in interpreting all kinds of musical contexts