China's fast economic growth after 1978 provided opportunities for existing large plants to grow into more complex, big businesses, stimulated especially by booming demand for their `upstream' products, such as steel, heavy machinery and petrochemicals. However, large firms emerged also from...

The main body of the paper analyses the reasons and the nature of Corporation's remarkable growth during the economic reform years since the late 1970s in China.

In the analysis of China's industrial reforms attention has focused on the declining role of the state sector. However, the emergence of the fast-growing market economy in China since the late 1970s has provided opportunities for traditional large plants to grow into more complex big businesses,...