Does social entrepreneurship exist in China?

Jieying Zheng

August 26, 2009

…was an interesting question that I was recently asked. This reminds me of a field study in China with my MBA classmates in May where we visited 19 organisations – both domestic and foreign, big and small. Some of the feedback we received was quite thought-provoking:

For instance, the Chinese host of one major venture capital firm, when asked to give an example of the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs that they have carried out, told us that their CSR initiative is “doing what they are doing” (investing in China-centric technology companies).

Another example would be the CFO of an IT company, which accounts for over 50% of the CDMA chip market share, pointed to the company’s donation to the recent Sichuan earthquake when asked the same question.

Interestingly enough, both of these two companies are, at least partly, funded by large US venture capital firms. I cannot help but wonder about the influence that the foreign firms exercise, or lack exercising rather, on the Chinese management teams of these organisations. When the Chinese domestic market was opened up to Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) 20 years ago, one rationale was to import the “latest expertise in modern business management”. While CSR has become a common term in the mainstream business in the western world, I wonder how much of the concept has been transferred into the Chinese mindset in these two cases.

However, the picture is not all gloomy. China-crossroads has just published a list of Chinese social entrepreneurs who can be found on Twitter. The length of the list is uplifting, given the rather short period (5-6 years) since the concept and related studies formally entered China (for further reading, see the British Council report).

And, looking back, what about the time before 1949? I recently came across an article (in Mandarin by Wu Xiaobo) on the life of Yan Yangchu, a Chinese farmer who started the largest education and anti-poverty movement which involved people who returned from studies abroad in rural China in 1929.

The history of social entrepreneurship in China, therefore, has long roots in my opinion. Yet, not surprisingly, it disappeared for half a century when all enterprises went government-owned after the Revolution in 1949. Recently, however, social enterprises in China have mushroomed. Time will tell how quickly they will become impactful again, especially in terms of their impact on mainstream business.