Fortune Makers: The Leaders Creating China's Great Global Companies

by Michael Useem, Harbir Singh, Liang Neng, Peter Cappelli

Overview

Fortune Makers analyzes and brings to light the distinctive practices of business leaders who are the future of the Chinese economy. These leaders oversee not the old state-owned enterprises, but private companies that have had to invent their way forward out of the wreckage of an economy in tatters following the Cultural Revolution.

Outside of brand names such as Alibaba and Lenovo, little is known, even by the Chinese themselves, about the people present at the creation of these innovative businesses. Fortune Makers provides sharp insights into their unique styles -- a distinctive blend of the entrepreneur, the street fighter, and practices developed by the Communist Party -- and their distinctive ways of leading and managing their organizations that are unlike anything the West is familiar with.

When Peter Drucker published Concept of the Corporation in 1946, he revealed what made large American corporations tick. Similarly, when Japanese companies emerged as a global force in the 1980s, insightful analysts explained the practices that brought Japan's economy out of the ashes -- and what managers elsewhere could learn to compete with them. Now, based on unprecedented access, Fortune Makers allows business leaders in the United States and the rest of the West to understand the essential character and style of Chinese corporate life and its dominant players, whose businesses are the foundation of the domestic Chinese market and are now making their mark globally.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781610396592
Publisher:	PublicAffairs
Publication date:	03/14/2017
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
File size:	8 MB

About the Author

Michael Useem is William and Jacalyn Egan Professor of Management and director of the Center for Leadership and Change Management, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Harbir Singh is William and Phyllis Mack Professor of Management and co-director of the Mack Institute for Technological Innovation at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Neng Liang is Professor of Management, Director of the Case Development Center, and Associate Dean for Faculty, China Europe International Business School, China.

Peter Cappelli is George W. Taylor Professor of Management and director of the Center for Human Resources, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Table of Contents

1 Introduction: Not the American Way: "It seems surely just a matter of time before a 'China Way' emerges." 1

2 Their Own Way Forward: 'It's very difficult to apply the US business model to China directly.… We have to develop our own." 23

3 The Learning Company: "Learning is embedded in everything I do." 59

4 Strategic Agility for the Long Game: "I am a crocodile in the Yangtze River." 81

5 Talent Management: "We will make it because we are young and we never, never give up. 101

6 The Big Boss: "The Chinese leader is always top down." 129

7 Growth as Gospel: "The most important thing is to grow the cake and let everyone take a piece from it." 149

8 Governance As Partnership: "I disagree with maximizing shareholder value.… The most important stakeholder is our customers." 173

9 What's Distinctive, What's Sustainable: 'It's our responsibility to shift from 'made in China' to 'designed in China."' 199

Appendix 1 Growth of the China Way 223

Appendix 2 Chinese Business Leaders Interviewed 229

Acknowledgments 233

Notes 235

References 243

Index 263

Editorial Reviews

01/09/2017
Four business school professors deliver a lively exploration of the Chinese way of doing business. As the introduction emphasizes, China’s economy has accelerated with astonishing speed in recent decades, and without the political liberties typically associated with capitalism. For readers interested in understanding this process from the inside, the authors describe how the leaders of Chinese companies such as Haier, Alibaba, and Lenovo think about business. They break down this unique mindset into seven key phrases or terms—“their own way forward,” “the learning company,” “strategic agility for the long game,” “talent management,” “the big boss,” “growth as gospel,” and “governance as partnership”—and devote a chapter to each. The authors also give a history of the growth of Chinese business in the 1980s and ’90s and provide highly detailed case studies from the companies under discussion. In the final chapter they observe that these once pioneering businesses have now attained a certain level of maturity and may become models for non-Chinese companies. The book also leaves readers with a question: with China’s culture shifting once again as a less-deferential generation enters the workforce, is the “China way” of business sustainable? (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

"Surprising insights...The authors ably demonstrate how the once-countercultural practice of capitalism in China remains unlike the variety practiced in the West. Full of object lessons, this is a valuable overview for students of international commerce."—Kirkus Reviews

"A lively exploration of the Chinese way of doing business."
—Publishers Weekly

"Fortune Makers chronicles how a new brand of Chinese business leaders have thrown off the shackles of the Cultural Revolution and State-owned enterprises to lead aggressive private companies into the global business arena. The authors-Cappelli, Liang, Singh and Useem-provide a fascinating glimpse what makes these CEOs and the companies they lead tick, while sounding an alarm bell for all those Western competitors that will need to up their game to be successful in the future. This is a book that should be required reading for anyone conducting international business inside or outside of China."—Arthur D. Collins, Jr., former Chairman and CEO of Medtronic, Inc., and Managing Partner, Acorn Advisors, LLC

"Fortune Makers provides an extremely interesting perspective on a new breed of global companies with roots in China. As the chief marketing officer of Lenovo for four years, I had the unique privilege to observe and engage in the operations of one such company. Made me a huge believer in the massive impact companies like Lenovo will continue to make on the global stage. To understand how China's great private companies are being directed and led, this is the book to read."—Deepak Advani, Managing Director of private-equity firm, Hellman & Friedman LLC, and formerly Global Chief Marketing Officer of Lenovo and General Manager of IBM Commerce

From the Publisher

02/01/2017
Coauthors Useem (director, Ctr. for Leadership and Change, Wharton Sch., Univ. of Pennsylvania), Harbir Singh (codirector, Mack. Inst. for Innovation Management, Wharton Sch., Univ. of Pennsylvania), Neng Liang (director, Case Development Ctr., China Europe Intl. Business Sch.), and Peter Cappelli (director, Ctr. for Human Resources, Wharton Sch., Univ. of Pennsylvania) explain how Chinese business leaders thrived, leading to the economic development that pulled over half a billion people out of poverty. They write that "when China first initiated its economic reforms in 1978, there were virtually no private enterprises in China and few indigenous traditions for China's would-be entrepreneurs to build upon or emulate." The authors offer an informative and balanced look at Chinese business leaders' success in an environment initially hostile to capitalist principles. This book is an excellent resource for those interested in China's business environment or economic development. It is informed by interviews of business leaders and examines leading companies, such as Lenovo and Alibaba, while providing a broader theoretical context to frame the discussion of Chinese and Western approaches to the marketplace. VERDICT A must-read for anyone interested in China's economic development or business environment.—Casey Watters, Singapore Management Univ.

Library Journal

2016-12-27
There are new markets to share out there, and the old capitalist way of doing things won't be the one that captures them.In this collaboration between researchers at the Wharton School and the China Europe International Business School, there are the usual tables depicting, say, the value of mergers and acquisitions over the last decade, and the usual nostrums about how Chinese society is governed, for all its communist veneer, by Confucian ideals. Beyond these to-be-expected features, though, lie some surprising insights into how the biggest players in the Chinese economy—beyond the state and military themselves—worked their ways into their positions and, more important, what makes them different from their counterparts in the West. Take Zhang Ruimin, for instance, CEO of the Haier Group, the world's largest appliance company. As a Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution, he was "charged with bringing down bourgeois elements within society, especially anybody associated with capitalism." He then rose through the ranks in construction and manufacturing, returning from a trip to Germany ashamed at the shoddiness of Chinese goods—so much so that, in the factory he now headed, he ordered that defective units be smashed to pieces. His experience in the Maoist era, the authors write, made him cautious and perhaps even fearful but also unusually committed to an economic experiment that is still playing out, based on the traditional guanxi ("personal networks of relations that give an executive access and influence") but also on some notable precepts—e.g., the idea that economic success should benefit all members of society and not just a few players. Examining several business leaders and their strategies, from "resetting the game" to eliminate weak positions to growing business partners and suppliers in concert with growing one's own business, the authors ably demonstrate how the once-countercultural practice of capitalism in China remains unlike the variety practiced in the West. Full of object lessons, this is a valuable overview for students of international commerce.

Kirkus Reviews