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Kinship Networks, Village Industry, and Max Weber
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| | Unformatted Document Text:
Preliminary draft, January 2003
Please do not cite without permission
K
INSHIP
N
ETWORKS
,
V
ILLAGE
I
NDUSTRY
,
AND
M
AX
W
EBER
*
Yusheng PENG
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Abstract
Max Weber had observed, nearly a century ago, that the strong lineage system inhibited the emergence of rational capitalistic business organization in China. Recently Martin White reevaluated the Weberian thesis from the perspective of social capita theory and argued that, rather than an obstacle, Chinese familism (including kinship ties) may have facilitated the economic growth in China over the last two decades. This paper attempts to empirically test the competing hypotheses by focusing on the relationship between kinship networks and the development of rural enterprises. Poisson regressions of the count of enterprises show that kinship networks, measured by proportion of most common surnames, significantly increase the number of rural enterprises, especially the number of private enterprises in Chinese villages. Firm-level productivity analysis, however, does not find any correlation between kinship networks and efficiency. I conclude that the lineage system facilitated founding of private enterprises by providing resources that were not available through formal channels; but the efficient operation of enterprises depends more on rational management and formal institutional support.
Direct all correspondence to Yusheng Peng, Department of Sociology, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong (email:
## email not listed ##
). This research was partly supported by the South China
Programme, Chinese University of Hong Kong. For helpful comments, we wish to thank Philip Huang, Shen Yuan, Yanje Bian, Min Zhou, Deborah Davis, Alvin So, and James Kung.
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|
Preliminary draft, January 2003
Please do not cite without permission
K
INSHIP
N
ETWORKS
,
V
ILLAGE
I
NDUSTRY
,
AND
M
AX
W
EBER
*
Yusheng PENG
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Abstract
Max Weber had observed, nearly a century ago, that the strong lineage system inhibited
the emergence of rational capitalistic business organization in China. Recently Martin
White reevaluated the Weberian thesis from the perspective of social capita theory and
argued that, rather than an obstacle, Chinese familism (including kinship ties) may have
facilitated the economic growth in China over the last two decades. This paper attempts
to empirically test the competing hypotheses by focusing on the relationship between
kinship networks and the development of rural enterprises. Poisson regressions of the
count of enterprises show that kinship networks, measured by proportion of most
common surnames, significantly increase the number of rural enterprises, especially the
number of private enterprises in Chinese villages. Firm-level productivity analysis,
however, does not find any correlation between kinship networks and efficiency. I
conclude that the lineage system facilitated founding of private enterprises by
providing resources that were not available through formal channels; but the efficient
operation of enterprises depends more on rational management and formal institutional
support.
Direct all correspondence to Yusheng Peng, Department of Sociology, Chinese
University of Hong Kong, Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong (email:
## email not listed ##
). This research was partly supported by the South China
Programme, Chinese University of Hong Kong. For helpful comments, we wish to
thank Philip Huang, Shen Yuan, Yanje Bian, Min Zhou, Deborah Davis, Alvin So, and
James Kung.
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