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Twenty-five years of economic reform has propelled China to the center of the world's economic stage. Based on current trends, in the foreseeable future China is likely to become the largest economy in the world. China's dramatic growth may be envied by other developing economies, but for management scholars it presents an exciting intellectual puzzle. In this paper we describe the empirical context of China today, review contemporary research on Chinese management and organizations, and describe the nine papers in this special issue of Organization Science. The papers provide a close examination of how massive corporate transformation in China has influenced inter firm relationships, affected opportunity structures and social processes, and modified individual behaviors within firms. We identify the many paradoxes in this intellectual terrain and present a guide to the challenging research agenda ahead. We recommend that scholars of organizations think deeply about China as a context and consider China as an empirical setting where the boundaries of existing knowledge on organizations can be extended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's government launched the Western Region Development Strategy in 2000 with the aim of boosting economic development in 12 provinces, municipalities and autonomous administrative regions in the western part of the country. This paper presents the results of an assessment of the progress made so far and makes suggestions for better performance in the future. We conclude that although the western region has experienced impressive rates of economic growth, regional disparities in China have continued to widen in spite of the western regional strategy. We also develop a regional growth model to determine the major drivers of regional economic growth in the western region of China. Furthermore, the sources of regional disparities are examined using Morduch and Sicular's regression-based decomposition approach. These models are used for suggesting a more targeted package of regional development policies for the period beyond 2010. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - To examine China's reforms and successes could have been replicated to other transition economies. Design/methodology/approach - The applicability of the Chinese process as an alternative for transition economies involves an analysis of the necessary reforms regarding price liberalisation-stabilisation privatisation; institutions; monetary policy and the financial system; fiscal policy; international trade and foreign aid and social policy. Findings - The transition process in China has maintained political-ideological authoritarianism and state control of the whole economy. Therefore, it was not the ‘special initial conditions’ of China that made the model inappropriate but, rather, the switch to a democratic political-ideological-economic structure in transition economies. Originality/value - The paper contributes to the transition literature by demonstrating that the strategy was only rendered workable in China, as the governments of transition economies neither had the mandate nor wanted to reimpose tight state direction of the politics, ideology and economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite high economic growth over the past 30 years, China's substantial and persistent regional disparities have been the subject of continuing concern to policy makers, as well as the target of a wide variety of policies. An important issue in the policy debate about whether and how best to attack these disparities is whether measures designed to improve regional equality come at a cost to national development, i.e., whether there is a trade-off between the level of national output and the equality of its distribution across the regions. There is little analysis of this issue in the literature. We help fill this gap by setting up a two-region model designed to capture some of the salient features of the Chinese economy. We subject this model to a number of policy shocks and assess the effects on regional disparities in per capita output, on the one hand, and on aggregate output on the other to investigate the trade-off. We also consider income and welfare as alternatives to output. We find, first, that disparities in per capita output, income, and welfare may move in different directions so that it is important to specify which disparity is being targeted. Second, since both disparities and aggregate outcomes are endogenous, how they move together depends on the nature of the shock driving the model. Thus, some policies designed to reduce disparities face a trade-off and others do not. Only a reduction in internal migration restrictions unambiguously reduces all three disparity measures and increases aggregate output, income, and welfare. All other policies considered face a trade-off in at least one dimension. Third, whether there is a trade-off depends also on the time horizon-some policies face a trade-off in the short run and not in the long run and vice versa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three main features characterize the international financial integration of China and India. First, while only having a small global share of privately-held external assets and liabilities, these countries are large holders of official reserves. Second, their international balance sheets are highly asymmetric: both are “short equity, long debt.” Third, China and India have improved their net external positions over the last decade although neoclassical models would predict them to be net borrowers. We argue that domestic financial policies are key to understanding these patterns and the future role of China in the international financial system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's economic success has bred a new complacency and resistance to change. This in turn has created a credibility crisis, as many Chinese citizens believe the opposition of vested interests makes reform impossible. However, proponents of economic reform argue that the current economic strategy is unsustainable. They point to reform backsliding, overinvestment, and financial fragility as problems that will collide with an inevitable economic slowdown caused by rapid demographic changes, and that will potentially cause economic and political crisis. Renewed economic reform is thus the only prudent and viable choice. The November 2013 Third Plenum shows that China's leaders have tentatively accepted the need for reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many economists have attributed China's high growth to the implementation of the correct sequence of reforms. The authors reject this interpretation because it does not characterize the reform process correctly; it does not recognize adequately the interaction among reforms that sustains the progress of each individual reform; and optimal sequences exist only when the policy maker is constrained to introducing only one new policy measure at a time (so-called optimality disappears once simultaneous implementation of policies is allowed). We propose the parallel partial progression approach as the alternative conceptual framework for the gradualist approach. Parallel partial progression is not the same as the step-by-step sequencing approach because a "partial reform" is not a "completed step." Simultaneous partial implementation is preferable to policy sequencing because it eliminates the costs of incoherence among policies. Incoherence among reforms results could cause a "reform bottleneck," and the two major bottlenecks that China is facing right now are financial reform and political reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers an analysis on the ideologies and realities related to labor standards and labor rights in China. It also examines the employment conditions and the economic development of the country, and forecasts its position in the global economy in the near future. Despite being a communist country, the author stresses that it continuously soar economically as evidenced by economic indicators. The article also mentions some disadvantages its economy particularly on its people. The main problem is social equity that affects much the employment condition of the country.

Provides an overview of the status of the Chinese economy as of June 1, 2006. Benefits from China's economic reforms; Growth and opportunities offered by the country's accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001; Overall objective of the Chinese government's macroeconomic policy.