PRIVATE ENTREPRENEURS IN CHINA AND VIETNAM PART 2-1

In this part of the work we are concerned with a profile of the character of the entrepreneurial strata. This requires that at some points we have to go into some detail in order to elucidate this profile, and work through spatial and structural differences
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PRIVATE ENTREPRENEURS IN CHINA AND VIETNAM PART 2-1 PART TWO: THE EMPIRICAL WORK: THE PROFILE OF THE STRATEGIC GROUP ENTREPRENEURSIn this part of the work we are concerned with a profile of the character of theentrepreneurial strata. This requires that at some points we have to go into somedetail in order to elucidate this profile, and work through spatial and structuraldifferences. Only in this way can we obtain a differentiated picture of the en-trepreneurial strata. 1. Choice of the research localities, methodological procedures and frame- works in the regions studied1.1. Choice of areas to be surveyed and methodological proceduresThe set of questions described in the introductory chapter cannot be answeredfor the whole of either China or Vietnam. Apart from the size of China, in thecase of both countries an analysis of the entire country would be made moredifficult by a significant regional diversification and unequal development. Thechoice of an area that is representative for the entire country appears to us to bealmost impossible. The rapidly developing Southeast and East of China exist insharp contrast to less developed Central China and the still less developedNorth-West, whereas in Vietnam the urban centers Ho Chi Minh City and Ha-noi constitute the main centers of development. There are at times considerablecontrasts between on the one hand the level of appearances or official state-ments as criteria for selection, and on the other hand the true state of affairs orreality, and these would have made the search for a representative region morequestionable in addition. As a result we chose for the survey regions, in eachcase one which had played a role as forerunner, since in those areas the pro-gress of privatization and the formation of an entrepreneurial strata was at themost advanced stage, and that region may at the same time have played the roleof a trendsetter. In order to make a comparison more feasible, our study wasalso carried out in a rather backwards region as well as one with a “middling”level of development. However one area should not be all too backwards sincein such regions only very few private companies exist. It is precisely in poorerareas that entrepreneurial potential, capital and markets are in short supply. In order to reduce the number of private companies that are the subject ofstudy to a realistic number, we limited them in each case to an urban segmentand a township in a rural area. Beyond that the large number of companies aswell as forms of companies compelled a limitation to a partial area. As bearersof privatization, private entrepreneurs stood in the middle of our field work.Since within the private sector the percentage share of industrial companies isthe highest, we concentrated on this partial segment (industrial entrepreneurs).78 PART TWO: THE STRATEGIC GROUP ENTREPRENEURSMeasured by the stated goals of the reforms, the industrial sector has anywayincreased in importance. The industrial entrepreneurs can be divided into largeand small entrepreneurs. In China we took over the criteria used by the Com-mission for the Reform of the Structure of the Economy, which in 1996 classi-fied companies with an annual turnover of over five million Yuan (about$500,000) as “large companies”. 50 out of 178 companies examined fulfilledthese criteria. In Vietnam in contrast there were only a few large companies inthis sense, namely only 21 (10.4%). Due to this low proportion, I refrained inthe latter case from this differentiation. Data was collected and ascertained at the macro-, meso- and micro-levelsduring which the main focus was on the micro-level. At the macro- (central)and the meso-level (provinces), the data that we ourselves ascertained, servedthe primary function of assisting us in embedding the information gathered in atthe micro-level into a larger, superordinated context. At the macro- and meso-levels we obtained new data in each case in a similar way. Through the evalua-tion of statistics and documents as well by means of interviews, data was gath-ered in about the state of the privatization process in both national and regionalcontexts, about the role of the private sector of the national/regional section ofthe economy, and about local development strategies. Considering the statisti-cal inexactitude, this data collection reflected mostly the state of knowledge ofthe institution that was in each case asked. As well as what has just been men-tioned, legal stipulations and administrative regulations for the private sectorwere also collected in order to be able to determine the differing regional andlocal emphases. The survey of entrepreneurs was completed by interviews with 203 officials(ranging from the lower right up to the ministerial level) at the Central PartySchool in Beijing in 1996. Since the ...