6. China’s Entrepreneurial Companies—And What We Can Learn from Them

Here we look at the management approaches used by five Chinese companies known by many for being high-growth Chinese firms. The chapter begins with an overview of business conditions the companies face in their home market, then describes how each has responded. Haier, the oldest, began by upgrading quality in its core appliance business, then moved to successive stages of product and management innovation. The Internet firms Alibaba, Baidu, and Tencent grew and diversified from their original niches, while Xiaomi took novel approaches to designing and marketing its smartphones. The chapter closes with a synthesis and analysis of management models used at the companies. Common features include: corporate cultures that depart from the traditional state-run bureaucracies, with emphasis on qualities such as informality, creativity, and embracing change; and “platform” structures that make extensive use of open innovation along with internal small-team work.