9 - 11 DECEMBER 1998
KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA
Small & Medium Entrepreneurship
In 1995 a workshop on 'Asian Entrepreneurs in Comparative Perspective' was held at the University of Amsterdam, with the financial support of the Asia Committee of the European Science Foundation. This workshop resulted in an edited volume entitled 'Small Business Entrepreneurs in Asia and Europe' (Sage Publications, 1997). In December 1998, a second gathering on the same theme was organized by the Department of Chinese Studies of the University of Malay in Kuala Lumpur.
By * MARIO RUTTEN & SIKKO VISSCHER
The starting point of this second workshop was that as a class, rural/regional entrepreneurs have, over the past two decades, emerged as one of the most powerful categories within the emerging middle class of Asia. Noting their importance, very relevant in the wake of the recent crisis in Asia, the organizers argued that the study of entrepreneurship in Asia would be more specifically defined and problematized by using the comparative approach.For this second workshop, the comparative approach was operationalized by inviting the paper writers to incorporate cross-regional comparison in the papers themselves. Of course, analysis based on sets of empirical data gathered in various regions of Asia and Europe or a combination of the two would constitute the ideal basis for an interesting paper, but the minimum requirement placed upon the paper writers was that they at least complement their regional case study by a thorough discussion of similar problems and processes in another region. Two specific themes were singled out: 1) Organization and business behaviour of small-scale entrepreneurs (family businesses, networking, partnerships, business associations etc.), 2) Relations between small-scale entrepreneurs and the state in its various guises.
In total, 22 researchers from eight different countries participated in the conference. The 14 papers presented covered small and medium-scale entrepreneurs in 14 countries in South, Southeast, and East Asia, some of which included European experiences into their analysis.
Themes
In the course of the presentations and the discussions sparked off by them, four main themes resurfaced. Firstly, in the discussion of how entrepreneurial behaviour can be promoted, two distinct views were presented; a top-down and a bottom-up approach. Tan Sri Dato' Soong Siew Hoong, Senior Advisor to the government of Malaysia and long-term leader of a number of Malaysian business organizations gave a rare glimpse of policy making in progress. He discussed how Malaysia is trying to promote its small and medium-enterprise (SME) sector by judicious use of well-integrated and detailed government intervention. Prof. Thomas Heberer (Gerhard-Mercator University in Duisburg, Germany), by contrast, showed in the cases of the People's Republic of China and Vietnam that 'spontaneous' developments on the ground were always a step ahead of legislation and government policy.
Secondly, and closely related to the first theme, the effects of policy and socio-economic conditions on SMEs were analysed in two papers. Prof. Chia Oai Peng (University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur) compared the historical development of the sectors in Taiwan and Malaysia respectively, whereas Prof. Philippe Regnier (University of Geneva) looked at the East and Southeast Asian regions analysing the effects of the recent economic crisis on SMEs.
Thirdly, a number of papers focused on organizational forms and strategies. Sikko Visscher MA (CASA, University of Amsterdam) concentrated on long-term developments and circumstances determining the establishment of chambers of commerce in Europe and Southeast Asia. Prof. David Schak (Griffith University, Australia) and Dr Mario Rutten (CASA, University of Amsterdam) analysed the importance of family and non-family forms of business organization in different regions of South Asia (India), Southeast Asia (Malaysia and Indonesia), and East Asia (Taiwan and China).
Finally, some papers presented the local perspective, analysing themes such as company loyalty in Malaysian small enterprises (Dr Moha Asri Abdullah of University Sains Malaysia, Penang), gender aspects of women entrepreneurs in South India (Dr K. Shanti, University of Madras), and rural arts and crafts industries in India (Prof. S.R. Mondal University of North Bengal; Prof. K.A. Bhat, University of Kashmir; Prof. S.S. Solanki of NISTDS, New Delhi). These contributions focused on how groups within the sector could be empowered or stimulated through local or national policy initiatives.
Follow-up
Participants agreed on the need for theoretical and most of all empirical comparative research and expressed their appreciation of both the format and thematic approach of the workshop. In that light, Prof. Thomas Heberer and Dr Thomas Menkhoff proposed organizing a third workshop on 'Small and medium entrepreneurs in Asia and Europe compared', either at the Institute of East Asian Studies, Gerhard-Mercator University in Duisburg, Germany, or at the National University of Singapore. Information about this conference and a call for papers will be disseminated through the IIAS Newsletter. *
Mario Rutten is Nordic-Netherlands research fellow, stationed at NIAS, Denmark, Sicco Visscher is affiliated with CASA, Universiteit van Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
E-mails: rutten@nias.ku.dk and visscher@pscw.uva.nl.