Understanding Business Systems in Developing Countries

Private companies in developing countries have come to play a more prominent role as economic actors, following the greater say given to market forces by most third world Governments in recent years. Against this background, the contributors to this volume challenge the assumptions of classical business economics about the universal nature of the firm. They show instead that the embeddedness of firms in the larger societal context of nations impacts on their ability and their ways of adjusting to current forms of international competition. The key theoretical approach highlighted in this book is the concept of a ‘business system’ as defined by Richard Whitley and his associates. Essentially, this approach assumes that there are some features of the way economic actors are organized, which are characteristic of and peculiar to a given country and/or region. Rather than dwell on the general features of economic actors across countries, this approach studies how firms are constituted as discrete economic actors in different market contexts. This volume elaborates this approach both theoretically (by drawing on insights from other theoretical approaches) and empirically (by reporting results from country studies of business systems in Malaysia, South Korea, India, Indonesia and Ghana). It covers a wide range of issues including: The validity of the business systems approach for understanding developing capitalisms in ‘the South’. New ways of doing business in India as firms adapt to more competitive markets, A comparison of the inter-firm linkages in the Indonesian Jamu Industry and the characteristics of the Chinese family business system, A critical assessment of the business systems approach based on a case study of the transformation of the Malaysian Auto Industry. The organization of technology management as an essential characteristic of the Korean business system, A study of entrepreneurship focusing on the social capital of entrepreneurs in Ghana and their institutional context in the internationalization of Ghanaian firms, An analysis of the theoretical contributions of the business system approach, industrial districts and the commodity chain to an understanding of the inter-nationally working enterprise as a situated in the tradition of business economics. An important addition to the literature on business in development, this volume will be of interest to those in the fields of international business, industry, organizational behaviour, management, economics and development studies.