Manufacturing Reform and the State: The Case of the Chinese Steel Industry

Abstract

In 1979 the decision was taken to develop a Contract Responsibility System experiment as part of China's economic reform programme, and the system was eventually applied in 85% of China's iron and steel corporations. Before the CRS was introduced, these corporations were state‐owned and state managed; net incomes had to be handed over to the state, and funds for investment had to be examined, approved and distributed by the state. The task was one of reforming large state‐owned corporations through integrating government administration with enterprise management, and creating a sense of ‘enterprise’ on the part of workers in the process. As such the CRS operates at two main levels — enterprise level contracting with the state (the state contract system), and internal contracting within the Corporation's businesses (the internal contract system).

Citation

Sheehan, J., Hassard, J., Forrester, P., Morris, J., Porter, R. and Yuxin, X. (1997), "Manufacturing Reform and the State: The Case of the Chinese Steel Industry", Management Research News, Vol. 20 No. 2/3, pp. 48-49. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb028540