China’s capitalist transformation: The rhetoric that mattered

This book provides a rare account of China’s market reform in the own words of the Chinese: politicians, intellectuals, the media, and journalists. The Chinese rhetoric―complex, ironic, argumentative, and abstruse―may hold the key to understanding China’s unique style of elite politics, state-citizen relationship, and institutional development. Topics include the establishment and change of the stock market and the recent institutionalization of the private equity industry. Rhetoricizing the Chinese capitalist transformation provides a glimpse into how the Chinese minds work as Chinese people participate in the process of changing the country and themselves. Adopting both an indigenous perspective and an outsider view on China, this book serves as a guide for anyone interested in learning how Chinese reason, persuade, debate, and resist.

About the Author :
Dr. Yuan Li is a business professor specializing in management, organization theory, and strategy. She obtained her PhD from the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California. Her research analyzes the cultural and symbolic processes of organizational, institutional, and technological change. Drawing from various disciplines such as sociology, political science, communications, anthropology, cultural studies, philosophy, and history, her work illuminates the ways in which social and organizational actors make, and are made by, meaning. 　 Li’s work has examined the diffusion of managerial innovations such as the Total Quality Management, a paradox lens on organizations, organizational event stigma, and the dialogical perspective on organizational development and change. Her recent projects explore the shifting struggles and organizational strategies of diversity, equity, and inclusion, the social and symbolic ecologies of artificial intelligence, and the rhetoric of disruptive technologies. She is known for introducing semiotics to institutional theory in explaining mechanisms of institutionalization and decoupling. These conceptual models have practical implications for a wide range of cases such as the adoption of DEI, ESG, and innovations. Dr. Yuan Li has published in leading management journals such as the Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Journal of Management Studies, Journal of Management Inquiry, Journal of Business Ethics, Management Communication Quarterly, and Culture and Organization, among others. She serves on the Editorial Board of Organization Studies."

Review :
"An outstanding contribution to understanding one of the most dramatic changes of the 20th century. Li provides a unique insider's look at how China's transformation was framed, discussed, and debated within the party as it reshaped its economy to become more capitalist." Professor Paul Hirsch, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University "This excellent book provides a rare combination of a thorough and in-depth analysis of one of the most transformative chapters in China's history in the last century and a very well-written story with fascinating insights. Yuan Li masterfully disentangles the multiple layers of rhetoric and meaning and their implications for the transformation process." Professor Renate Meyer, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business and CBS Copenhagen Business School.