Industry and industrial studies Books

Book Synopsis“When thinking about modern China’s chemical industry, forget not Fan Xudong,” so declared Mao Zedong publicly after 1949. Although Mao might have united front politics in mind when invoking Fan as a paragon of the national bourgeoisie, why would the chairman praise a champion of private enterprise? How did Fan Xudong and his colleagues build Yongli from scratch into one of the largest industrial conglomerates in modern China amid predatory foreign competition and domestic strife? What were his secrets of success? Drawing from company documents, government archives, and personal correspondences, this book traces Yongli’s birth, growth, nationalization, and how Fan and his colleagues pursued a third path of national development between for-profit private enterprise and state ownership.Table of ContentsList of Abbreviations Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter 1: Founding Chapter 2: Salt in, Salt out Chapter 3: Tolerable for All? Chapter 4: The Politics and Economics of Ammonium Sulfate Chapter 5: Creative Financing and Reorganization Chapter 6: At War Chapter 7: Dilemmas Chapter 8: Crisis and Nationalization Postscript Appendices Glossary Selected Bibliography

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Book SynopsisOver the past seven decades—since the 1949 Revolution—every aspect of Chinese society has been profoundly transformed multiple times. No sector has experienced more tumultuous twists and turns than industry. The eight articles contained in this volume examine these twists and turns, focusing on those aspects of industrial relations that involve contention and power, that is, factory politics. They were selected among articles that have appeared in the Chinese journal Open Times (开放时代) over the past decade. Because Open Times has a well-earned reputation for publishing diverse viewpoints, it has been able to attract some of the very best scholarship in China.Trade Review"[Factory Politics in China] is fluidly translated and it fills important gaps in existing research. It applies concepts developed by theorists in China and abroad to developments in the “workshop of the world”—and then quietly tweaks those same theories. It alters our understanding of the country’s labour history in significant ways, e.g., by raising the status of the Great Leap Forward and its immediate aftermath and lowering that of the Cultural Revolution and early Reform Era. But most importantly, it introduces a thoughtful, creative, and committed group of scholars who should be followed closely by anyone concerned with social justice and worker power in China or elsewhere." -Manfred Elfstrom, University of British Columbia Okanagan, Kelowna in Pacific Affairs: Vol. 94, No. 3 (Sept. 2021)Table of ContentsList of Contributors Introduction 1 From Passion to Deception – Daily Life at the Grassroots under State Control of Production before and after the Great Leap Forward: an Investigation of TY Factory in Guangzhou (1956–1965)  Jia Wenjuan (贾文娟)  Translated by Shayan Momin 2 Research into the Implementation of the Staff and Workers Congress System in State-Owned Enterprises: a 60-Year Case Study of One Factory  Cai He (蔡禾) and Li Wanlian (李晚莲)  Translated by Roderick Graham Flagg 3 A Simple Control Model Analysis of Labor Relations in Industrial SOEs  Tong Xin (佟新)  Translated by Roderick Graham Flagg 4 Changes in Production Models within State-Owned Enterprises under the “Double Transformations:” the Rise of Internal Labor Subcontracting in City A’s Nanchang Factory (2001–2013)  Jia Wenjuan (贾文娟)  Translated by Shayan Momin 5 Sustaining Production: Spatial Interactions between Han and Uyghur Workers at the Kashgar Cotton Mill  Liu Ming (刘明)  Translated by Heather Mowbray 6 Corporate Social Responsibility in the Global Toy Industry’s Supply Chain: an Empirical Study of Walmart Supplier Factories in China  Yu Xiaomin (余晓敏)  Translated by Shayan Momin 7 Direct Labor Union Elections: Lessons from Guangdong  Wen Xiaoyi (闻效仪)  Translated by Matthew A. Hale 8 Patterns of Collective Resistance among the New Generation of Chinese Migrant Workers: from the Politics of Production to the Politics of Life  Wang Jianhua (汪建华) and Meng Quan (孟泉)  Translated by Matthew A. Hale

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Book Synopsis"This book addresses the crucial question for innovative prospector companies of how to bridge the gap between exploration and exploitation. Whereas exploration deals with the search for new ideas and opportunities, exploitation is about incrementally moving the performance bar a little bit higher. Finding the right balance between exploration and exploitation is essential for the long term survival in today’s highly dynamic business environments. In a cross-industry study of ten large, multinational prospector companies, which are world leaders in their respective industries, it was discovered that the 'industry clockspeed', the length between the subsequent product generations, plays an essential role in bridging this gap. The product generation life cycle (PGLC) typically ranged from just several months in short life cycle industries (SLCIs), such as electronics and the mobile phone industry, to (more than) 10 years in long life cycle industries (LLCIs), such as aerospace and pharmaceutics. Our data indicate that companies operating in SLCIs face major problems in maintaining the long term knowledge base of their firms, whereas companies in LLCIs tend to have problems in aligning their innovation strategy to the short term business needs. To investigate the dynamics of strategic alignment, in one of the LLCI companies, a multinational supplier of industrial components, a six-year longitudinal study was conducted. Here our data indicate that finding a funding structure that effectively balances exploration and exploitation, combined with regular structured feedback between the exploration and exploitation function is needed to maintain long term strategic alignment. CTOs and innovation managers can use this book by first establishing the industry clockspeed(s) in their respective industries or product range(s) and then benchmark their innovation processes to those of the first class (SLCI or LLCI) prospector companies included in this book."

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