China Lunchtime Seminar
The lunchtime seminar series offers an informal venue for visiting academics and practitioners to present their expertise on China-related issues to the Fairbank Center community.


Tuesday October 6, 2009 12:15 pm

The Business Strategies of the Overseas Chinese
Usha C. V. Haley, Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation, the Harvard Kennedy School of Government

The economies of Greater China, including East and Southeast Asia, are dominated by about 40 families, most of overseas Chinese descent – the Huaqiao. Their conglomerates span sectors as diverse as real estate, telecommunications, hotels, paint, computers, and sugar plantations. Dr. Haley will show how and why overseas Chinese companies continue to dominate the region despite the financial crises and health epidemics of the past decade. She bases her conclusions on over 30 in-depth, structured interviews with overseas Chinese chief executive officers and senior managers, as well as on the strategic information used by their companies.

Usha Haley is an Asia Programs fellow at the Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation, the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and a research associate at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, DC. She was professor of international business and founding director of the Global Business Center at the University of New Haven. Her research focuses on business in China, India, and other emerging markets, business-government relations, FDI, strategic decision-making, sanctions, subsidies, and non-tariff barriers. Her latest book New Asian Emperors: The Business Strategies of the Overseas Chinese was published in May 2009. She holds a PhD in management and international business from New York University.

Location: CGIS South, Room S153
1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA
Contact: lkluz@fas.harvard.edu