The Social Construction of Business Systems in East Asia

Abstract

Distinctive forms of business organization have become dominant and successful in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong over the past 40 years. These different business systems reflect historical patterns of authority, trust and loyalty in Japan, Korea and China. They also vary in their specialization, strategic prefer ences and patterns of inter-firm co-ordination because of significant differences in their institutional environments, especially the political and financial systems. Similar processes exist in western societies but distinctive business systems are not so sharply bounded between nation states and cultures in Europe and North America.