Social Enterprise in China: State-third Sector Relations and Institutional Effectiveness

Wang offers an empirically based exploration into work-integration social enterprises as a means for delivering social services in China.

Focusing on the political economy of social enterprise development in China, Wang examines the nature of the relationship between the state and social enterprises and the implications of such relationships for their institutional effectiveness. She adopts a bottom-up approach that investigates indigenous practices embedded within the local political context. Common ground has been established internationally that the social enterprise model provides new ways of social service delivery that could potentially change and restructure the social welfare economy. However, the development path differs across social contexts, especially in an authoritarian country like China. This study provides insights into China's efforts to develop its social welfare sector and reinvigorate customary ideas about how public services could be better offered given the country's political economy.

This book will be of great interest to both scholars of China’s political economy and those with an interest in the development of the social enterprise sector looking to see how this works in a Chinese context.

Echo Lei Wang is currently Assistant Professor at the Department of China Studies, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University. She was a postdoctoral fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore during the writing of this book.