Lecture 19
NETWORK ECONOMIES
Business network
“bamboo” network
smuggling
human trafficking
Voluntary - local chamber of commerce, rotary, country club, etc
Compulsory - belong to an organization, to survive or operate successfully e.g. accountant, bankers.
Concept of networks
- Socially binding ties between actors
Diaspora - Jews, Indians, Chinese
Global tribes - combination of ethnic identity, geographical dispersion and open mindedness.
Japanese business networks
- complex combinations of overlapping relationships between large firms zaibatsu to keiretsu
Korean business networks
large Chaebols –
Simpler than Japanese. Focus on product- market relatedness and vertical integration.
Chinese networks strongly influenced by family ties
Guanxi 3 dominant and consistent influences:
1. Paternalism - benevolent authority of the father
2. Personalism - connections with persons who can be trusted, doing business
3. Insecurity - besieged minority focuses on persuit of wealth
Overseas Chinese and Indian business networks in S and SE Asia:
1. Little differentiation between controlling families and the firms
2. The firms have very strong familial and informal networks
3. The firms exhibit good relationships with public sectors in these countries
4. Highly diversified
Strategic management style
(Indian / Chinese)
1. Hands-on experience
2. Lateral transfer of knowledge
- Managers often have difficulties making decisions within new environmental context
3. Qualitative information
- Network managers almost always use external sources of information in making strategic decisions
4. Holistic information processing
- Conventional, analytical problem solving
5. Action-driven decision making
- Speed
Overseas Chinese networks
3 different, difficult stages:
1. Rags to riches
Left mainland with little wealth
To SE Asia, Taiwan, HK
2. Internationalization of the family business
- achieved a uniquely Chinese basis
3. Turnaround
- massive investment by overseas Chinese capitalists to establish new businesses in their original home, or that of their parents and grandparents.
Providing 3 essential ingredients:
1. Entrepreneurship
2. risk-taking capital investment
3. business management capability
Generalizations
1. Most overseas Chinese take a low profile in the commercial world shy away from publicity.
2. Rely on strict, centralized control and informal transactions to minimize company bureaucracy and paperwork
3. The successful overseas Chinese business family operates through a network of enterprises rather than the unitary company (e.g. Ford)
Maintain varying percentage interests in a galaxy of small to medium-sized firms
4. Overseas Chinese business leaders utilize a management style that is more informal and intuitive than that practised in a typical Western corporation.
Nature of overseas Chinese networks in Asia:
1. Massive cross–investment among these nations
2. Vibrant business activity in HK, Taipei, Singapore, Bangkok, KL, Jakarta, Manila, Ho Chi Minh, etc
Indonesia - overseas Chinese make up 3 - 4% population yet 70% of private domestic capital run more than 160 of 200 largest businesses.
Malaysia - ethnic Chinese control half of the nation’s corporate assets
Philippines - ethnic Chinese 2% of population, but control over 1/3 of 1,000 largest corporations
Differences among overseas Chinese population in Asia:
1. HK, Singapore - British traditions of governance
2. Taiwan - American and Japanese political and economic philosophy
3. ASEAN - ethnic minorities but powerful in business
4. Coastal China
- overseas Chinese with indigenous Chinese in a hybridized market / centrally planned environment
Trafficking Business
- goods (cigarettes, electronics, liquor, etc)
- banned goods (drugs, firearms, endangered species, etc)
- currencies
- people
Globalization of international migration
North-South gap
- life expectancy, demography, economic structure, social conditions, political stability. Rich and poor
Oil-rich Arab States, E. Asia
International migration mostly intra-regional, but also to industrial democracies
Globalization has brought people together, but also new forms of organized crime
Income disparities, labour and migration policies of sending and receiving countries
Environmental degradation
Push - Pull Factors
1. Economic disparities between societies, different levels of development
2. Asylum seekers and refugees
3. Historical changes in E. Europe and former Soviet Union
4. Removal of internal border controls in EU
5. Women being sold into sex-trade industry
6. Demographic shifts require people to move for employment
7. Available “cross-national networks”. Illegal
8. Environmental degradation
9. Government policies manipulate population for “larger” policy related interests
Trends in International Migration
U.S.A. - important net recipient of migrants, largest gross recipient
EU - changed from emigration nations to receiving net flows (last 4 decades)
Japan - net migration traditionally negligible. Since 1998, received 270,000 arrivals. Restrictions eased
Family reunion to demand towards skilled workers, technicians, engineers
Illegal immigration (human trafficking)
Modern day slave trade
- harsh, uncertain, expensive
Golden venture, New York City 1993,
300 stowaways
Dover, 2000, 54 Chinese men, 4 women,
2 survivors
Rich countries have a real economic demand for labour
Developing countries have a generous surplus
China a major source of illegal migration 100,000 smuggled abroad each year, earning $3 billion for trafficking syndicates
Global picture
Each year, 400,000 - 500,000 smuggled into EU
300,000 into USA
1999 11,000 Chinese claimed asylum in EU,
1/4 applied in UK
Women smuggling
young, mostly from E&C Europe
300,000 a year, mostly sex trade
Russian, trafficking women yielded $7 billion annually
Snakeheads
Worldwide, 50 gangs handle human trafficking
Illicit trade - take documents, visas, passports, money-laundering
How much to pay?
Chinese : US$50,000 for journey to US
US$20,000 for journey to Europe
US$10,000 for journey to Japan
Filipino to Kuwait $3,000
Bangladesh to Germany $4,000 - 6,000
Morocco to Spain $500 (boat)
Mexican across border to LA $200 - 400
Afghan or Lebanese to $5,000 - $10,000
Germany
Global mafia
Chinese and Vietnamese triads
Japanese Yakuza
S. America cartels
Italian, Russian and other European mafias
International strategic alliances and collaborations with local criminal networks
Gangs earn US$5 - 7 billion in profits each year from human trafficking, according to UN International Organization of Migration (10M). Other estimate, $12 billion
5 years for illegal migrants to pay off debt – prostitutes or soldiers for illegal gangs