Nee

Professor of sociology Victor Nee was recently honored by the Academy of Management with an award for his book on the emergence and growth of a private enterprise economy in China.

Nee and his co-author, Sonja Opper, received the 2013 George R. Terry Book Award for “Capitalism From Below: Markets and Institutional Change in China” (Harvard University Press, 2012).

The award, given by the international association to the book making the most outstanding contribution to the advancement of management knowledge, was presented at the academy’s annual meeting in Orlando, Fla.

The book is concerned with why and how a modern capitalist economic order emerged in China – a communist state that until 35 years ago suppressed capitalism but now has a thriving private enterprise economy.

Nee is the Frank and Rosa Rhodes Professor at Cornell and director of the Center for the Study of Economy and Society (CSES). Opper is a professor of international economics and business at Lund University, Sweden, and a fellow at CSES.

They studied more than 700 manufacturing firms in China’s Yangtze region which, through innovation and trial and error, were able to start up and grow outside of the established economic order.  The book analyzes how entrepreneurs overcame barriers set up by the Chinese government, which motivated them to develop their own networks of suppliers and distributors, gain competitive advantage in self-organized industrial clusters, attract financial support for startups and establish reliable business norms.

After the rapid growth of this fledgling private enterprise economy spread throughout the coastal regions of China and eroded the market share of state-owned firms, it was recognized by the country’s political elite as a dynamic means to promote economic growth and create wealth and manufacturing jobs.

Nee’s research in economic sociology examines the role of networks and norms in the emergence of economic institutions and organizations. His other books as author or editor include “On Capitalism” (2007), “The Economic Sociology of Capitalism” (2005) and “Remaking the American Mainstream: Assimilation and the New Immigration” (2003).