{"id":18741,"date":"2021-11-11T02:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-11-11T02:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eodishasamachar.com\/en\/2021\/11\/11\/cuhk-business-school-research-finds-rural-migrants-in-china-are-likely-to-establish-bigger-companies\/"},"modified":"2021-11-11T02:00:00","modified_gmt":"2021-11-11T02:00:00","slug":"cuhk-business-school-research-finds-rural-migrants-in-china-are-likely-to-establish-bigger-companies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eodishasamachar.com\/en\/2021\/11\/11\/cuhk-business-school-research-finds-rural-migrants-in-china-are-likely-to-establish-bigger-companies\/","title":{"rendered":"CUHK Business School Research Finds Rural Migrants in China Are Likely to Establish Bigger Companies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> \n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>HONG KONG SAR &#8211;\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.media-outreach.com\/\">Media&#13;<br \/>\nOutReach<\/a>\u00a0&#8211;\u00a011 November 2021 &#8211;<b> <\/b>Big cities are where dreams thrive.&#13;<br \/>\nTheir cosmopolitan allure, together with the sweet smell of financial&#13;<br \/>\nopportunity, have driven waves of migration to population centres throughout&#13;<br \/>\nhuman history. In the modern era, one such narrative is continuing to rapidly&#13;<br \/>\nunfold in China, where there were an estimated <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stats.gov.cn\/tjsj\/zxfb\/202104\/t20210430_1816933.html\">286 million<\/a>&#13;<br \/>\nrural migrant workers in 2020, accounting for more than one-third of the entire&#13;<br \/>\nworking population in the country, and coinciding with a rapid rise in&#13;<br \/>\nentrepreneurial activity. This coming together of two dramatic shifts has&#13;<br \/>\nafforded a group of researchers an opportunity to look at how urban migration&#13;<br \/>\nhas helped to drive entrepreneurship in China, especially through the prism of&#13;<br \/>\nthe role of universities in churning out a steady supply of well-educated and&#13;<br \/>\ninnovative talent.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: center\"><img src=\"https:\/\/images.media-outreach.com\/Thumb\/500x0\/195120\/CUHK.jpg#image-195120\" width=\"500\" style=\"font-size: 1rem\"\/><\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><i>The study found that entrepreneurs who migrated from rural&#13;<br \/>\nChina to big cities such as Shanghai were more risk-taking.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>One of their key findings is that,&#13;<br \/>\nin China, people who migrated from rural areas and attended university in big&#13;<br \/>\ncities are more likely to set up businesses that are bigger in size.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In modern China, the great urban&#13;<br \/>\nmigration kicked off in the 1980s as a result of economic reforms instituted at&#13;<br \/>\nthe time. Millions of rural migrants flocked to cities, such as Shenzhen and&#13;<br \/>\nDongguan, to take up jobs in factories. Entrepreneurship was considered&#13;<br \/>\nrelatively less common among rural migrants. Nonetheless, some of the most&#13;<br \/>\nfamous Chinese entrepreneurs had rural roots. For instance, Liu Qiangdong \u2013 the&#13;<br \/>\nfounder of JD.com was born in a small village in Jiangsu province and later&#13;<br \/>\nwent to study at a university in Beijing. Another example is Ma Huateng, also&#13;<br \/>\nknown as Pony Ma, who founded one of Asia&#8217;s most valuable conglomerates,&#13;<br \/>\nTencent. Mr. Ma was born in a small town in Guangdong province and went to&#13;<br \/>\nschool in Shenzhen, where he founded the multinational conglomerate.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Migrating from the countryside&#13;<br \/>\nto the city can be a challenging task for individuals not only because of the&#13;<br \/>\nphysical distance, but also the large cultural gap they would likely experience&#13;<br \/>\nupon relocating,&#8221; says <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bschool.cuhk.edu.hk\/staff\/wu-willow-you\/\">Willow Wu You<\/a>,&#13;<br \/>\nAssistant Professor in the Department of Management at The Chinese University&#13;<br \/>\nof Hong Kong (CUHK) Business School. &#8220;But in a sense, it&#8217;s something that&#13;<br \/>\nhas helped to drive the rise of private entrepreneurial activity in China and&#13;<br \/>\nallowed the country to maintain the growth it has experienced in recent years.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><b>Migration and Risk-taking<\/b><\/p>\n<p>While most existing migration&#13;<br \/>\nresearch studies focus on the variety that crosses international borders, Prof.&#13;<br \/>\nWu and her research partner Prof. Charles Eesley at Stanford University looked&#13;<br \/>\nat the effect of urban migration within a country on entrepreneurship in their&#13;<br \/>\nstudy <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1080\/00343404.2021.1934432\">Regional Migration, Entrepreneurship and University Alumni<\/a>. The two scholars conducted a survey among university&#13;<br \/>\nalumni from Tsinghua University and analysed the entrepreneurial experience of&#13;<br \/>\n283 business founders among those alumni. They found that entrepreneurs who&#13;<br \/>\nmigrated from rural China to big cities in the country were more risk-taking,&#13;<br \/>\nand with the access to better entrepreneurial opportunities and resources that&#13;<br \/>\ncomes with relocating to an urban environment, they are likely to establish&#13;<br \/>\nbigger companies.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In the study, the researchers&#13;<br \/>\nexamined whether the rural migrants were indeed more risk-taking by directly&#13;<br \/>\nasking their opinions on the concerns of starting a company in the survey. They&#13;<br \/>\ndiscovered that the rural migrants were less risk averse than urban dwellers,&#13;<br \/>\namong both entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs. Among non-entrepreneurs, only&#13;<br \/>\n36.1 percent of rural migrants considered entrepreneurship too risky, whereas&#13;<br \/>\n45.8 percent of urban dwellers expressed similar concerns. Among entrepreneurs,&#13;<br \/>\nthe percentage is 7.4 percent for rural migrations and 19.0 percent for urban&#13;<br \/>\ndwellers. In addition, the study results show that urban migration is&#13;<br \/>\npositively and significantly associated with the likelihood of founding larger&#13;<br \/>\ncompanies.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><b>The Role of Universities<\/b><\/p>\n<p>The researchers sought to explain&#13;<br \/>\nthis phenomenon through the role of universities, noting that they are&#13;<br \/>\nuniversally well-regarded for their important role in supplying talent that are&#13;<br \/>\nneeded to drive business and innovative performance. They posit that if&#13;<br \/>\nentrepreneurship is the force and process of continuous change that drives&#13;<br \/>\ninnovation, as famously stated by the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter,&#13;<br \/>\nthen universities are a crucial channel through which this force can be&#13;<br \/>\ndirected to produce the most benefit for an economy. &#8220;If entrepreneurship&#13;<br \/>\nrepresents the winds of creative destruction as suggested by Schumpeter,&#13;<br \/>\nuniversities may play a role in directing those winds via their influence on&#13;<br \/>\nregional migration,&#8221; Prof. Wu says.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>According to Prof. Wu, apart from&#13;<br \/>\nproviding social support for rural migrants, the universities that these&#13;<br \/>\nmigrant students attended allow them to become anonymous and reinvent&#13;<br \/>\nthemselves by creating new connections in the urban areas where they settle. By&#13;<br \/>\ndoing this, migrant entrepreneurs become more willing to take risks because&#13;<br \/>\nthey have fewer worries over stigma from failure, which may happen if they were&#13;<br \/>\nstarting businesses in their hometowns.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>According to researchers, the&#13;<br \/>\nuniversities that migrant students attend allow them to become anonymous and&#13;<br \/>\nreinvent themselves by creating new connections in the urban areas where they&#13;<br \/>\nsettle.<\/p>\n<p>Overall, the study finds that rural&#13;<br \/>\nmigrant entrepreneurs tend to build larger companies because of their&#13;<br \/>\nrisk-seeking attitudes and the access to better entrepreneurial resources in&#13;<br \/>\ncities. Contrary to earlier management research that suggest entrepreneurs tend&#13;<br \/>\nto create their companies close to home, the study shows that the likelihood of&#13;<br \/>\nbuilding a bigger firm is higher among university graduates who migrated from&#13;<br \/>\nrural areas compared to non-migrant university graduates. Specifically, entrepreneurs&#13;<br \/>\nwho chose to start tech startups in science parks were likely to form companies&#13;<br \/>\nwith the largest number of employees (i.e. within the top 25 percent).&#13;<br \/>\nEntrepreneurs who chose to start their firms in special economic zones hire the&#13;<br \/>\nsecond largest number of staff (i.e. between the top 50 percent and the top 25&#13;<br \/>\npercent).<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The study notes that universities&#13;<br \/>\nhave an important role to play in fostering entrepreneurship by redistributing&#13;<br \/>\ntalent through providing college education opportunities to rural students. In&#13;<br \/>\nparticular, the risk-taking attitude among the alumni and the social network&#13;<br \/>\nresources provided by universities are crucial to the success of rural migrant&#13;<br \/>\nentrepreneurs.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><b>Regional Policy Implications<\/b><\/p>\n<p>To stay in the city or to go back&#13;<br \/>\nhome is a common question faced by many students who moved from small towns to&#13;<br \/>\nmajor cities for college education upon graduation. Prof. Wu says their&#13;<br \/>\nfindings raised an important question of whether migrant students should be&#13;<br \/>\nencouraged to return to their hometowns or to remain in an urban setting to try&#13;<br \/>\nto be more successful in their careers.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, she explains that&#13;<br \/>\nuniversities in urban areas, together with interconnected businesses and&#13;<br \/>\ninstitutions, attract highly talented and risk-taking migrants and import them&#13;<br \/>\nin the form of students, which then benefit the areas that the universities are&#13;<br \/>\nlocated. But, as talented migrants are being attracted to just a few major&#13;<br \/>\ncities, smaller cities would suffer due to lower growth in entrepreneurship.&#13;<br \/>\nFor policymakers, the research findings provide useful implications in how to&#13;<br \/>\npromote economic growth by talent mobility.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The majority of people who have&#13;<br \/>\npotential to become entrepreneurs live outside the big innovation hubs like&#13;<br \/>\nShenzhen. The current policy direction is either to retain these&#13;<br \/>\nentrepreneurial spirits in the regions where they hail from or to bring down&#13;<br \/>\nmigration from rural regions to urban areas. Earlier rural migrants supported&#13;<br \/>\nthe economic growth by providing low-cost labour.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But, as our research finding&#13;<br \/>\nshows, rural migrants can also become very successful entrepreneurs. That&#8217;s why&#13;<br \/>\npolicies that can promote some sort of interregional mobility may be more&#13;<br \/>\nbeneficial for local economies,&#8221; Prof. Wu says, adding that adapting&#13;<br \/>\nuniversities programmes and course content to provide support to rural migrants&#13;<br \/>\nmay help more of them become successful entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><b>Reference:<\/b><\/p>\n<p>You (Willow) Wu &amp; Charles E. Eesley (2021) Regional migration,&#13;<br \/>\nentrepreneurship and university alumni, Regional Studies, DOI: <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1080\/00343404.2021.1934432\">10.1080\/00343404.2021.1934432<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>This article was first published in the China Business Knowledge (CBK)&#13;<br \/>\nwebsite by CUHK Business School: <a href=\"https:\/\/bit.ly\/3EXYvdM\">https:\/\/bit.ly\/3EXYvdM<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.media-outreach.com\/news\/2021-11-11\/103581\/cuhk-business-school-research-finds-rural-migrants-in-china-are-likely-to-establish-bigger-companies\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>HONG KONG SAR &#8211;\u00a0Media&#13; OutReach\u00a0&#8211;\u00a011 November 2021 &#8211; Big cities are where dreams thrive.&#13; Their cosmopolitan allure, together with the sweet smell of financial&#13; opportunity, have driven waves of migration to population centres throughout&#13; human history. In the modern era, one such narrative is continuing to rapidly&#13; unfold in China, where there were an estimated &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18742,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eodishasamachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18741"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eodishasamachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eodishasamachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eodishasamachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eodishasamachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/eodishasamachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18741\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eodishasamachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eodishasamachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eodishasamachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eodishasamachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}