Chinese Entrepreneurs in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) – An Emic View

In-depth personal interviews are conducted with nine Chinese entrepreneurs. They are located in three different geographical regions from coastal to interior. Their businesses span eight sectors from clothing to industrial automation. This article focuses on their motivations to start new businesses, and introduces their educational and working background as well. The interview results show that eight out of nine entrepreneurs resigned from their stable or even enviable positions to pursue their personal dreams - from creating own brand in men's suits to commercializing research findings from own PhD dissertation in industrial automation. The research findings have some important implications on engineering education, female entrepreneurship, and forms of business ownership for SMEs