Author Description

The emergence of rural entrepreneurs in China in this decade is a phenomenon with no parallel in other developing countries. The rapid growth of the numerous small to medium township and village enterprises (TVEs) set up by these entrepreneurs has surprised even the Chinese leadership. Apart from providing non-farm employment to 124 million surplus rural labour, TVEs were a driving force behind China's dynamic economic growth in the 1990s. This book is a product of an intensive case study of ten carefully selected TVEs from Southern Jiangsu and Eastern Shandong by trained field workers from Peking University. Its main focus is the structure, conduct and performance of each TVE as a business enterprise, with particular focus on the role that the enterprise director plays in founding the enterprise, organizing production, recruiting labour, acquiring new technology, marketing its products and dealing with the town government as well as the innumerable difficulties that usually accompany all new businesses. Each case has an interesting enterprise story behind it. Each TVE inevitably bears the stamp of the personality of its director. In short, each success story is the outcome of enterpreneurship par excellence.