Entrepreneurship and the Legacies of a Developmental State: Singapore Enterprises Venturing Across National Borders

Abstract

This article aims at contributing to a more profound understanding of the relationship between the developmental state and private entrepreneurial activity, in particular the internationalization of business ventures. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Singapore, this article attempts to identify the role of the Singapore developmental state in orchestrating the strategies of domestic firms establishing themselves in foreign markets. From the 1960s, the Singapore government has neglected small domestic firms — its legacy of the colonial past — for diverse economic and political reasons. Initially offsetting the influence of Western culture through the establishment of foreign companies, the government changed its tune, harnessing 'Asian' values and institutional norms to facilitate ventures into China. Altering between different legacies created ambivalence and shifting coalitions with foreign economies. Striking divergence from government directives has been found in the ways in which Singaporean firms go about when venturing across borders and, in particular, when drawing on the city state's legacies to give their ventures legitimacy and meaning. This divergence raises questions about the role of the Singapore state as the paragon of institutional legacy for its domestic businesses.

Value chain upgrading: Evidence from the Singaporean aquaculture industry

“…Much of this success is attributed to the city-state's government which plays a prominent role in implementing effective socioeconomic policies. Its success in the early decades was predominantly based on the strategy of phasing out the weaker portion of the private sector and investing heavily in human resource development to build a skilled labor force for the foreign multinational companies (MNCs) and governmentlinked companies (GLCs) in a two-legged policy [39,40]. At that time, the private sector was primarily made up of labor-intensive companies, many of which were ethnic Chinese family firms.…”

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“…This version of capitalism is ‘characterized by both hierarchical relationships within the family and a system of intraethnic reciprocal relationships known as guanxi (good connections)’ (Dahles, : 489). The core tenet of this approach is ‘that the family as a fundamental unit of social and economic organization gives the ethnic Chinese their sense of identity and, at the same time, strengthens their business ties’ (Dahles, : 489). In summary, interpersonal relationships, especially those among the ethnic Chinese, serve as the ‘glue’ in interlinking cooperative relationships of the broader Chinese business networks.…”

“…Some scholars (the culturalist) have attributed the success of the Chinese firms and entrepreneurs to a unique ‘cultural’ capacity for them to cooperate among themselves, as they are grounded in ‘a set of beliefs and values which lies behind the behaviour of Chinese businessmen’ (Redding, : 79). Nevertheless, another school of thought (the institutionalist) explains such activities by taking into account the changing institutional contexts that these firms are embedded in, while not entirely negating the ‘cultural’ aspects of the ethnic Chinese (e.g., Tsui‐Auch, ; Dahles, ). In other words, their commercial success must not be seen purely along ethnic lines, as it is also shaped by business and political expediency in the particular Asian economies surveyed.…”

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