Abstract
The study of economic behaviour comparatively between societies has been handicapped by a weakness in the handling of societal ‘context’, and this arises from epistemological challenges inadequately met by much positivist research. Consideration is given here to certain contributions to meeting this challenge, namely: Geertz's work on the analysis of culture via ‘thick description’; Maurice's advocacy of the society as an appropriate unit of analysis; Ragin's proposals for the comparative method; and Whitley's development of the business systems model. Ideas drawn from these contributions are applied in an analysis of the Chinese state-owned enterprise system, seen as a business system. Thus, a set of coordinative features of organizations are seen as embedded in a set of institutions distinct to China, these in turn resting on a cultural base, the latter serving to provide ‘meaning’ to the rest. The evolution of the business system is seen historically.
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