Douglas B. Fuller

This Element qualifies the common understanding of State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) as mere instruments of the state and instead conceive of them as economic actors in their own right. Specifically, SOE top management teams have leeway to diverge from goals that the state they are owned by pursues. Through 'institutional work' they can even actively shape the institutional framework in which they are embedded. However, the extent of SOE top management teams' leeway for agency is determined by macro- (country), meso- (State–SOE governance system), and industry-level factors. These factors, in turn, vary from country to country and over time. In other words, SOE agency is 'embedded agency.' Combining institutional work and historical institutionalism analytic lenses, this Element presents a multilevel model to understand embedded agency of top management teams of SOEs in contemporary capitalism. The model adds an important element to our understanding of the 'new state capitalism.'

This Element qualifies the common understanding of State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) as mere instruments of the state and instead conceive of them as economic actors in their own right. Specifically, SOE top management teams have leeway to diverge from goals that the state they are owned by pursues. Through 'institutional work' they can even actively shape the institutional framework in which they are embedded. However, the extent of SOE top management teams' leeway for agency is determined by macro- (country), meso- (State–SOE governance system), and industry-level factors. These factors, in turn, vary from country to country and over time. In other words, SOE agency is 'embedded agency.' Combining institutional work and historical institutionalism analytic lenses, this Element presents a multilevel model to understand embedded agency of top management teams of SOEs in contemporary capitalism. The model adds an important element to our understanding of the 'new state capitalism.'

China presents us with a conundrum. How has a developing country with a spectacularly inefficient financial system, coupled with asset-destroying state-owned firms, managed to create a number of vibrant high-tech firms? China's domestic financial system fails most private firms by neglecting to give them sufficient support to pursue technological upgrading, even while smothering state-favoured firms by providing them with too much support. Due to their foreign financing, multinational corporations suffer from neither insufficient funds nor soft budget constraints, but they are insufficiently committed to China's development. Hybrid firms that combine ethnic Chinese management and foreign financing are the hidden dragons driving China's technological development. They avoid the maladies of China's domestic financial system while remaining committed to enhancing China's domestic technological capabilities. In sad contrast, China's domestic firms are technological paper tigers. State efforts to build local innovation clusters and create national champions have not managed to transform these firms into drivers of technological development. These findings upend fundamental debates about China's political economy. Rather than a choice between state capitalism and building domestic market institutions, China has fostered state capitalism even while tolerating the importing of foreign market institutions. While the book's findings suggest that China's state and domestic market institutions are ineffective, the hybrids promise an alternative way to avoid the middle-income trap. By documenting how variation in China's institutional terrain impacts technological development, the book also provides much needed nuance to widespread yet mutually irreconcilable claims that China is either an emerging innovation power or a technological backwater. Looking beyond China, hybrid-led development has implications for new alternative economic development models and new ways to conceptualize contemporary capitalism that go beyond current domestic institution-centric approaches.

China presents us with a conundrum. How has a developing country with a spectacularly inefficient financial system, coupled with asset-destroying state-owned firms, managed to create a number of vibrant high-tech firms? China's domestic financial system fails most private firms by neglecting to give them sufficient support to pursue technological upgrading, even while smothering state-favoured firms by providing them with too much support. Due to their foreign financing, multinational corporations suffer from neither insufficient funds nor soft budget constraints, but they are insufficiently committed to China's development. Hybrid firms that combine ethnic Chinese management and foreign financing are the hidden dragons driving China's technological development. They avoid the maladies of China's domestic financial system while remaining committed to enhancing China's domestic technological capabilities. In sad contrast, China's domestic firms are technological paper tigers. State efforts to build local innovation clusters and create national champions have not managed to transform these firms into drivers of technological development. These findings upend fundamental debates about China's political economy. Rather than a choice between state capitalism and building domestic market institutions, China has fostered state capitalism even while tolerating the importing of foreign market institutions. While the book's findings suggest that China's state and domestic market institutions are ineffective, the hybrids promise an alternative way to avoid the middle-income trap. By documenting how variation in China's institutional terrain impacts technological development, the book also provides much needed nuance to widespread yet mutually irreconcilable claims that China is either an emerging innovation power or a technological backwater. Looking beyond China, hybrid-led development has implications for new alternative economic development models and new ways to conceptualize contemporary capitalism that go beyond current domestic institution-centric approaches.