The Iron Rice-Bowl: The Early Days

Abstract

Early industrial enterprises which grew up in China were mostly located in the military sphere and tried to keep to the traditional division of labour, with ‘official supervision and merchant management’ (Lockett, 1980, p.454). By the turn of the century, foreign- and comprador-owned enterprises were set up in the coastal regions, particularly textile factories and flour mills. These were few in number and by 1912 there were only just over 350 factories using mechanical power and around 750 works employing over 100 operatives each (Feuerwerker, 1958, p.5). In the interwar years, the textile industry developed extensively, especially in large cities like Shanghai. Many of these factories were Japanese-owned and managed, and it was through their influence that many ideas of the US management theorist F.W. Taylor, as adapted to Japanese practice, were introduced (Warner, 1994). Many British and American businesses were also expanding in the inter-war years and it was largely through their production methods that exogenous management ideas entered China. It was not until the early 1950s that Taylorism in another foreign guise, namely Soviet management practice (see Beissinger, 1988), again became an important influence in Chinese industry.1