Entrepreneurial Elite Research Articles

‘China’s leading historical and cultural city’: Branding Dali City through public–private partnerships in Bai architecture revitalization

Competing with other Chinese cities for investment and tourism, various governmental bodies with jurisdiction in Dali City have begun to make use of local historical and cultural assets in order to brand the city. This paper aims to reveal how partnerships between the public and private sectors in heritage management have functioned as an approach to city branding, and how local people perceive and are influenced by these partnerships. Applying perspectives from the scholarly literature on city branding and public–private partnerships, this paper examines two cases in Dali City – Zhang’s Garden and the Linden Center – to detail how local government and elite entrepreneurs have partnernered in support of Bai architecture revitalization with tourism in mind. This paper also considers opinions from the local general public regarding these partnerships, and investigates the complex relationships among local government, elite entrepreneurs, and the public.

De-Judaizing a Class, Hellenizing a City: Jewish Merchants and the Future of Salonica in Greek Public Discourse, 1913–1914

Current historiography approaches the passage of Salonican Jewry from the Ottoman Empire to the Greek nation-state from a macroscopic perspective. Concentrating on state-minority relations, it focuses exclusively on external forces, treating Salonican Jews as a homogenized community and ignoring the role of the city’s non-Jews. To reassess the importance of the local dynamic, this article examines processes within Salonica itself. Through a close reading of a debate over the city’s commercial future, it considers the shifts in Greco-Jewish relations and the swift reversal of ethnic hierarchies within the city’s entrepreneurial elite that took place at a time when Greek government circles still included the Jews in their vision of a commercially prosperous Greek Salonica. In 1913–14, the Salonican Chamber of Commerce’s proposal to establish a free port generated a heated discussion that transcended the boundaries of professional deliberations and entered the local public sphere. The Greek New Club, an organization whose members were drawn from Salonica’s still small and economically weak Greek entrepreneurial class, became heavily involved in the debate, broadening the field of entrepreneurial politics, marginalizing the existing multiethnic Ottoman commercial institutions, and ultimately elevating itself as the rightful representative of a class and a city’s broader interests. At the same time, the Greek press identified the proposal’s advocates as Jewish businessmen and discursively constructed them as un-Greek. Before the aggressive policies of a nationalizing state led to the complete marginalization of Salonica’s Jews during the interwar period, this historically particular local interplay of class and ethnicity was instrumental in laying the groundwork for the de-Judaization of the city.

Operationalizing the highly skilled diasporic transnational family: China and India's transnational governance strategies

Mass elite or ‘knowledge’ migration from developing countries has led to debate about brain drain and how to convert this loss of human talent into brain gains, or at least into brain circulation. Discussion of migration and diaspora, therefore, is intimately linked to migration as potential leverage for development. In the absence of being able to prevent people from living, countries with increasing levels of outgoing migrants are actively encouraging their talent diaspora to return, as well as to contribute to the ‘motherland’ from afar. This paper will discuss how two of the countries with the largest migrant output in the world – India and China – view and harness the talent potential of their global diasporas. Adopting a historical approach, the paper will first trace the evolution of diaspora policies and infrastructure in each country, showing how historically the level of diaspora engagement varied according to both domestic and international political contexts. China, for example, has gone from considering migration to be an imperial crime, to considering all ethnic Chinese as an integral part of the Chinese nation. It will then compare and contrast the actual policies of diaspora engagement adopted by India and China, evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of each country's policies. While China has promoted the return of its scientific and entrepreneurial elite, India has made it progressively easier to travel and invest in India for people of Indian origin. Despite different policy focuses, India and China are united in using a discourse of ethnic pride – what can be termed ‘emotional citizenship’ in encouraging its ethnic diasporas to cultivate an emotional bond to the country of their ancestors. The diaspora policies of India and China reveal that, in an attempt to attract investment and stem brain gain, developing countries, while stopping short of introducing full dual nationality for geopolitical reasons, are seeking to create new forms of flexible citizenship that enable them to reap an ‘ethnic dividend’ from their global ethnic diasporas.

When the war is over: Lithgow, Western Sydney and the search for higher education options

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the interaction between a liminal rural Australian city (Lithgow) and the development of higher education options across the city's history. The paper proposes a nuanced interaction between national, social, religious, political, regional and local forces to explain why an industrial city such as Lithgow, with obvious educational strengths, would be overlooked while others (such as Wollongong and Bathurst) were not. Design/methodology/approach – The paper takes the form of a longitudinal study of educational institutions, placed in their historical contexts, in order to demonstrate the fluctuation of educational vision with the rise and fall of socio-economic contributors to the town's fortunes. Findings – The paper finds that the city's formation and dependence on war-related industries created boom-bust cycles which negatively impacted on its entrepreneurial, managerial and working class elites, and so on its ability to bring cultural and political influence to bear in the formation of local higher education options, across a period in which higher education becomes an increasingly federal responsibility. Practical implications – The paper suggests policy ramifications for the support of higher education options in the city. Social implications – The paper supports the interpretation that it is not merely that education itself promotes social mobility, but that what type of education is important, along with an eye to how education contributes to the overall well-being and cross-class profile of the city of Lithgow. Originality/value – This paper fills a gap in historical knowledge about Lithgow's educational institutions, the study of which heretofore has tended to be located with either labor historical or heritage approaches. This paper takes a socio-cultural and longitudinal/holistic approach which brings together a variety of approaches previously not treated.

Entrepreneurial and Business Elites of China: The Chinese Returnees Who Have Shaped Modern China

Entrepreneurial and Business Elites of China: The Chinese Returnees Who Have Shaped Modern China

Book Review: Entrepreneurial and Business Elites of China: The Chinese Returnees Who Have Shaped Modern China

Book Review: Entrepreneurial and Business Elites of China: The Chinese Returnees Who Have Shaped Modern China

Failure is an Option: Failure Barriers and New Firm Performance

Does an institutional change that eases exit via bankruptcy reform enhance venture growth? We take advantage of a quasi-natural experiment in Japan to examine this question. Using longitudinal data over a 10-year period, we find that bankruptcy reform not only increases the rates of bankruptcy and founding, but more importantly improves the likelihood of high growth ventures. This institutional change disproportionately encourages elite individuals (i.e., those with superior human and social capital) to start firms. In turn, these individuals are more likely to launch high growth ventures. Broadly, we contribute at the nexus of institutional theory and entrepreneurship by placing elite entrepreneurs and venture growth in the spotlight, and by highlighting how an institutional change that eases exit fosters a regenerative cycle of exit, founding and growth by attracting more capable entrepreneurs. Overall, we conclude that lowering barriers to exit via lenient bankruptcy laws encourages superior – and not just more – entrepreneurs to start firms.

Exploring contemporary entrepreneurial philanthropy

Research beyond the field of entrepreneurship has long observed the involvement of super-wealthy entrepreneurs in large-scale philanthropic endeavours, while the world’s media has endowed them with celebrity-like status. However, entrepreneurial philanthropy is largely absent from the entrepreneurship research literature. This article addresses this gap both theoretically and empirically. It proposes capital theory as an appropriate theoretical lens through which to view contemporary entrepreneurial philanthropy, and to present fresh evidence relating to successful, wealthy entrepreneurs involved in significant philanthropic ventures. The findings highlight the active deployment of a distinctive blend of different forms of capital as a defining feature of entrepreneurial philanthropy, and contribute to emerging discourses regarding the nature of entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship as a socio-economic process and the sparse empirical analyses on entrepreneurial elites.

Introduction: Fluidity and Friction in Talent Migration

In this introduction to the special issue of JEMS on The Cultural Politics of Talent Migration in Asia, we note the movement in the academic literature from a narrow focus on the economic rationalities and corporate logics of transnational mobility among professional, managerial and entrepreneurial elites, to a greater interest in these elite transnational subjects as embodied bearers of culture, ethnicity, class and gender. We draw out two key themes that inform the arguments advanced by the papers in this special issue. First, instead of hyper-fluid global nomads who move effortlessly across frictionless global space, the papers show that moving and belonging are not simply motivated by economic logic but are folded into broader social, cultural and political considerations and conditioned by the power geometries of race, nationality and gender. Second, different groups of talent migrants are attracted to and positioned differently in specific spaces of encounter within cities, generating a politics of identity that influences everyday life. Taken together, these two themes highlight the need to avoid artificially bifurcating the lives of talent migrants into the economic and social/cultural spheres, and instead to argue for interweaving them within the same frame in understanding the mobility of the highly skilled.

African Land, Up for Grabs

Sheikh Saudi and Ethiopia, Arabia, Mohammed where spends Hussein he his was time born Ali shuttling Al in a Amoudi, village between 64 a years citizen Riyadh ago. of Sheikh Saudi A abia, spends his time shuttlin between Ri adh d Ethiopia, where he was born i a village 64 ye rs ago. The son of a Yemeni father and Ethiopian mother, Al Amoudi boasts an estimated net worth of $10 billion. He is the richest Ethiopian and, according to Forbes, the 64th richest man in the world. Fortyfive years ago, he emigrated to Saudi Arabia and built his fortune in oil refineries and the booming construction industry. But Al Amoudi never lost touch with his homeland. In fact, Ethiopian real-estate has become a key part of his burgeoning portfolio. In 2009, Al Amoudi's company, Saudi Star Agricultural Development, signed long-term leases for nearly 25,000 acres in the country's northeastern regional state, Gambella, to produce

‘Finance Matters!’ The Influence of Financial Sector Reforms on the Development of the Entrepreneurial Elite in Egypt

Since the beginning of the 1990s, Egypt has conducted comprehensive reforms aiming to liberalize the state-controlled financial sector. This article analyses the possible impact of these reforms on the political sphere, arguing that financial liberalization could enhance the political independence of members of the private sector, helping them to play a more influential role in Egyptian politics leading to greater political liberalization. The empirical analysis of the Egyptian reform process does not support this assumed causality. Design and sequencing of financial reforms benefited first and foremost members of the entrepreneurial elite close to the regime. Nevertheless, financial reforms impact on power relations in Egypt by strengthening the position of these large-scale entrepreneurs within the political decision-making process.

Myths of the Entrepreneurial Elite

Myths of the Entrepreneurial Elite

Behind the Second Veil

In the last few decades, scholars of African American history have lifted W. E. B. DuBois's sombre of that lay between the white and black worlds of the Jim Crow South, revealing a vibrant world of struggle and survival.1 But the color barrier lay a second of class, woven by elite African Americans to hide the perceived immorality and poverty of the black working class from prying eyes. In her exhaustive study of post-emancipation Durham, North Carolina, Leslie Brown pulls aside the of race, but gives us only glances through the second of class. African Americans defined class status primarily through the ideology and practice of bourgeois respectability. Public displays of respectability hid not only the working class from sight, but also diminished differences within the middle class and elite ranks of black Durham. What contemporaries saw in Durham was a remarkable community of respectable upbuilders who erected a prosperous and stable facade of black success in the wake of the Civil War. Brown meticulously shows us how that facade was constructed, but not fully what it hid. In her opening chapters, Brown describes a New South city that was founded after emancipation and thus relatively untainted by the legacy of slavery. At the close of the Civil War, large numbers of African Americans began to settle in Durham, many of them women and children, initially in a community they provocatively called Hayti. This community became a safe space where an emerging entrepreneurial elite built churches, schools, and protective associations. Brown's aspiring class, a term she borrows from Michele Mitchell, was not part of an older black aristocracy, but like their New South white counterparts gained their status through property ownership and entrepreneurship.2 But the relative stability and prosperity they found behind the veil in Black Durham had a cost. Although segregation was good for black business, it marked the race as inferior and cut off opportunities to benefit from public works and city infrastructure. Brown makes it clear that this cost was

Pimping Climate Change: Richard Branson, Global Warming, and the Performance of Green Capitalism

On 21 September 2006 UK über-entrepreneur and Virgin Group Chairman Richard Branson pledged approximately £1.6 billion, the equivalent of all the profits from Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Trains for the next ten years, to fighting climate change. Since then, Branson has restated his commitment to action on global warming, including investment in technologies for sequestering carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. In this paper, I critically examine and engage with Branson's announcements as a specific entrée into a dialog about so-called ‘green capitalism’. I am particularly interested in the role of the entrepreneurial subject in environmental policy and environmental action. There are glaring problems associated with green capitalism as a mash-up of environmentalism with capitalism. One of these is the tethering of environmentalism to a political economy whose mantra is growth for growth's sake, or, in Marx's terms, accumulation for accumulation's sake. This has been discussed by some as the problem of capitalism's ecological metabolism or ‘metabolic rift’. Yet, while accumulation for accumulation's sake may well be anathema to progressive environmentalism and sustainability, I argue that this is not only an objective, quantitative problem but also one of the qualitative dimensions of produced nature and the cultural politics of environmentalism. Appreciation of this can be gleaned by reexamining Marx's discussion of the role of the bourgeois subject in the relentless drive to reproduce and expand capital accumulation via anarchic, entrepreneurial investment. Green capitalist orthodoxy relies on this source of innovative dynamism, but in the process obscures or overlooks the fact that accumulation for accumulation's sake is by definition guided by the anarchic and amoral search for profitable realization of surplus value. Moreover, in order for green capitalism to succeed, its legitimacy must be secured. I argue that this legitimacy derives in part from specific performances of green capitalism by entrepreneurial elites, also made evident by Branson and his commitments to climate action. All of this raises questions about the political, cultural, and ecological character of green capitalism, issues brought to the fore by Branson's brand of climate activism.

Elite empresarial: recrutamento e valores políticos (Paraná, 1995-2005)

Este artigo analisa algumas particularidades dos valores políticos da elite empresarial, aqui considerada como uma elite política, e de sua articulação com outras variáveis socioeconômicas, tomando como objeto o Paraná, entre 1995 e 2005. Através da aplicação de um questionário, foram levantadas informações sobre a origem social, a trajetória política e os valores políticos relacionados à democracia dos presidentes de entidades de representação do empresariado paranaense. Verificamos que este grupo é não apenas homogêno em relação a aspectos socioeconômicos, como também coeso em relação aos valores relacionados à democracia, o que não significa a inexistência de diferenças e divergências. Neste sentido, a consideração dos valores políticos desta elite empresarial e não apenas de seus aspectos socioeconômicos contribuiu para a compreensão de suas características, bem como das vias de acesso a esta elite.

Agricultural Revolution and Elite Reproduction in Qing China: The Transition to Capitalism Debate Revisited

Recent actor-centric theory about the historical rise of capitalism emphasizes the role of the autonomous agrarian elite in fostering a sustained agricultural revolution. This revolution generated ample agrarian surplus, in the form of rural elite's elevated income, to fuel a capitalist-industrial takeoff in late-eighteenth-century England. The nontransition to capitalism in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century China, despite the vast surplus generated in its advanced agrarian sector, shows that high agricultural productivity is a necessary but not sufficient condition for a capitalist takeoff. By comparing Qing China with eighteenth-century England, where capitalist industrialization erupted spontaneously, and nineteenth-century Japan, where capitalist industrialization succeeded under intensive state sponsorship, this article argues that a strong urban entrepreneurial elite, capable of centralizing the agrarian surplus and investing it in productive industrial innovation, were as important as the existence of the surplus itself in fomenting capitalist transition. The reproduction of the elite in eighteenth-century China was constrained, not by the anticommercial “oriental despotic” state as presumed in earlier literature, but by the state's paternalist disposition in managing urban class conflict. Capitalist-industrial development in China was further impeded in the nineteenth century, when a nexus of local predatory-military elite emerged in response to millenarian uprisings and wasted most of the agrarian surplus in their accumulation of means of violence. The negative case of China helps us advance the actor-centric model of capitalist transition by bringing urban entrepreneurs and class politics back in.

How New York Stole the Luxury Art Market

Scholarship on the domestic art market has generally addressed questions of supply and the role of cultural intermediaries. By contrast, this study of blockbuster auction sales in Victorian America demonstrates that newly ascendant entrepreneurial elites drove changes in the art trade and further suggests that how collectors acquired artworks is just as critical to understanding consumer preferences and the shape and evolution of markets as what they acquired. The American Art Association provided this client base with a novel means of art consumption that articulated, valorized, publicized, and habituated more hierarchical concepts of social class than before the Civil War.

Redesigning a class of its own: social and human capital formation in the German banking elite, 1870–1990

German bankers are renowned for their central position in the German model of ‘coordinated capitalism’ and for their elevated social status. Over the last 130 years, no other part of the entrepreneurial elite in Germany has displayed more power and stability. This article uses the concepts of social and human capital to explain this success and how German banking changed its patterns of recruitment, training and careers in response to general political and social trends. It also applies these concepts to the transformation of German banking from personal to managerial and, after 1970, to global capitalism. A conservative approach prevailed that integrated new demands but did so very cautiously. At the end of the twentieth century these features began to operate against German banking and weaken its international competitiveness, as the stock of specific social capital had created an inward-looking mindset.

The Rise of the 'Grand Entrepreneurs' in the Czech Republic and Their Contest for Capitalism

It is argued in the article that the peaceful transition to capitalism in communist countries was not possible without the co-action of the nomenklatura, whose interest was to transform their informal access to state-owned capital into an authentic ‘grand entrepreneurship’. The necessary acquisition of physical capital was achieved by means of mass privatisation schemes in which the nomenklatura took advantage of their social capital and information asymmetries. In the Czech case, there were three social groups competing for a position among the new entrepreneurial elite. The initially large gains of the nomenklatura gradually eroded when new businesses opened to domestic and international competition, where competitiveness depended on endowments of human (entrepreneurial) and economic capital. In the subsequent wave of ownership restructuring, initiated after 1994, the former nomenklatura was partially squeezed out of the tradable sector, which was occupied by better skilled foreign and domestic entrepreneurs. The exiting entrepreneurs converted their holdings into consumer goods, or defected to sectors less open to competition, where the alignment of social capital and bureaucracy persisted. Their position depends now on the pending reforms of public administration and the search for a more efficient social model.

Planned Tourism Development in Quintana Roo, Mexico: Engine for Regional Development or Prescription for Inequitable Growth?

In the 1960s the isolated tropical forest enclave of Quintana Roo was targeted by the Mexican Government to serve as the cornerstone for launching what is now considered to be one of Mexico’s most successful economic development strategies – Planned Tourism Development (PTD). This paper commences with a brief review of the role of state-driven PTD in Mexico’s national economic development agenda. Government discourse surrounding the Cancun project emphasised tourism as a mechanism for promoting ‘regional development’through creation of backward linkages to other economic sectors – notably agriculture and small industry – to benefit the region’s marginalised Mayan peasant population. Based on research in Quintana Roo, this paper contends that while PTD has generated profit for the Government, transnational corporations and entrepreneurial elites, it has failed to achieve backward linkages that may have improved conditions for the region’s impoverished rural population. Employing a case study approach, the paper illustrates the failure of PTD to stimulate balanced regional development, while analysing PTD’s role in reinforcing existing relations of domination and subordination to produce new patterns of uneven development and inequity within Quintana Roo.