China Business at a Crossroads: Institutions, Innovation, and International Competitiveness

As the world's fastest growing economy with over a billion population, China is a country that the world needs to know more about in order to understand and anticipate her global and regional impact. Toward this end, the current special issue seeks to advance knowledge about the changing institutions in China and their impact on China business from both the perspectives of foreign firms investing in China and Chinese firms expanding internationally. Four articles selected from a pool of over 50 submissions are presented here, each covering one or more of the country's changing economic, political, and technological institutions. Collectively, these four articles provide rich insights into the past, present, and future of China business that are useful for both academics and practitioners. They also identify areas where additional institutional changes will be needed in order for China and Chinese firms to compete successfully in the new innovation-driven global economy. These include: (1) developing informal institutions to support and reinforce the newly created formal institutions, (2) strengthening both the regulatory and normative protection of intellectual property as a societal value, (3) educational reform to encourage independent and creative thinking, and (4) further political reform including a loosening of the tight connection between politics and business.