Confucius Abroad: South-East Asian Businesses and Managers

Abstract

To speak of ‘businesses in South-East Asia’ as though they were a single unified phenomenon is to do the subject less than justice. Just as elsewhere in the world, there is a great deal of diversity. ‘Business’ can be anything from small corner shops to diversified multinational corporations like CP and Kerry Group, everything from agrobusinesses to specialist high-tech design agencies. It is thus very difficult to generalise about South-East Asian businesses. Equally it is hard to generalise about their managers, who range from old-fashioned entrepreneurs who run their businesses according to time-honoured methods, to modern ‘global managers’ who have been educated at Harvard Business School or INSEAD and can fit well into any setting.