Stepping out: The Making of Chinese Entrepreneurs

The Making of Chinese Entrepreneurs evolved out of an in-depth content analysis of 4,531 pages of transcripts recorded from 223 hours of interviews with 47 Chinese entrepreneurs, whose recount of their life histories captured the pioneering spirit of the Chinese entrepreneurs. This book offers a vivid character sketch of the Chinese Entrepreneur. The oral history approach adopted allows the authors to take a series of sociological-biographical snapshots of an entrepreneurial life unfolding. Such a life drama is illustrated by a rare collection of over forty archival photographs. The spirit of this book inspires as much as it informs. It integrates sociology, social psychology, history, and business management studies, and looks at the entrepreneur not from the vantage points of market planning and business calculus but from his own development complex of factors within and outside himself. Any apprentice in social sciences, business management, or human resource development – and, for that matter, the aspiring businessman – will find in it interesting casework material. By looking at entrepreneurship as a person-centered phenomenon in a social context – “the world begins with me” – this book adds a human dimension to current discussions on entrepreneurship. It is a study of the impact of personal values on economic behaviours in the once “brave new world” of the migrants.