Asset management and productivity in reform-era China

Abstract

In the spring of 1995, the Electronics Bureau of Shanghai [Shanghai Dianziju] changed its name to “Shanghai Electronics State-Owned Asset Management Company” [Shanghai dianzi guoyou zichan jingying gongsi]. As one official in the former Bureau explained, it had changed its name and its function: It was no longer set up to “govern” or “manage” [guan] Shanghai's electronics sector; instead it was now an asset management company whose function was to manage the assets of the firms that it owned.¹ At the time, the transformation seemed purely cosmetic. Calling itself an asset management company instead of a government bureau was one thing, but actually acting like an asset management company was quite another. Would firms under this former Bureau be any more productive as a result of the change? Would the work-life experiences of the people actually working in these firms change at all as a result?

Citation

Guthrie, D., Xiao, Z. and Wang, J. (2009), "Asset management and productivity in reform-era China", Keister, L. (Ed.) Work and Organizationsin China Afterthirty Years of Transition (Research in the Sociology of Work, Vol. 19), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 35-67. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0277-2833(2009)0000019005