Overview

A sociological examination of what is perhaps the main engine of economic reform in China, the large industrial firm. Doug Guthrie, who spent more than a year in Shanghai studying firms, interviewing managers and gathering data on firms' performance and practices, provides a detailed account of how these firms have been radically transformed since the mid-1980s. Guthrie shows that Chinese firms are increasingly imitating foreign firms in response both to growing contact with international investors and to being cut adrift from state support. Many firms, for example, are now less likely to use informal hiring practices, more likely to have formal grievance filing procedures and more likely to respect international institutions, such as the Chinese International Arbitration Commission. Guthrie argues that these findings support the de-linking of Western trade policy from human rights, since it is clear that economic engagement leads to constructive reform. Yet Guthrie also warns that reform in China is not a process of inevitable Westernization or of managers behaving as rational, profit-maximizing agents.Old habits, China's powerful state administration and the hierarchy of the for

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9780691095196

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Reviews

[Guthrie] provides an admirably clear and detailed exposition of who runs what in reformera industry in China, complete with diagrams... This book is essential reading for anyone interested in China's economic reforms and in transition economies more generally, and it will stand comparison with anything else in the field. -- Jackie Sheehan The Times Higher Education Supplement A splendid book... Dragon in a Three-Piece Suit provides a comprehensive examination of an important and timely phenomenon. The question is important. The data are not only unique, they are also remarkably comprehensive... [It is] likely to stimulate both discussion and additional research. -- Lisa A. Keister Contemporary Sociology

Author Information

Doug Guthrie is Associate Professor of Sociology and Director of Global Activities, Office of the Provost, at New York University.

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