Lai, Chi-Kong, "Cantonese Business Networks in Late Nineteenth Century Shanghai: The Case of the Kwang-Chao Kung-So" (1994)

Title : "Cantonese Business Networks in Late Nineteenth Century Shanghai: The Case of the Kwang-Chao Kung-So"

Author(s) : Lai, Chi-Kong

Year : 1994

Type : Journal article

Subject : History

Keywords : economy;social;elites;civic

Journal : Essays in Economic and Business History

Number : 12

Start page : 145

End page : 154

Language:Name : English

Support : Print

Abstract : In the highly competitive and relatively commercialized economy of late imperial China, households and partnerships predominated in production and distribution of important commodities. The growth of foreign trade and emergence of major interregional and international markets in the 18th and 19th centuries stimulated the development of large-scale merchant associations to provide market services and handle processing and distribution. These urban mercantile guilds had played a growing role from the late Ming period as the Chinese economy experienced a dramatic increase in commercialization. The Kwang-chao Kung-so (Guangzhou Gongsuo; Cantonese merchant guild in Shanghai) is examined as a case study.