中国加拿大研究网

怀雅逊大学林小华教授和关键博士到中国社科院作学术报告

2008年8月5日，中加“企业人类学：案例研究”座谈会在中国社会科学院民族学与人类学研究所召开。加拿大怀雅逊大学（Ryerson University）工商管理学院教授、国际研究中心主任林小华(Dr. Howard Lin)教授，怀雅逊大学国际移民评估项目主任关键博士(Dr. Jian Guan)应邀共同作了《联接国际创新的跨国企业家：加拿大和中国的案例研究》的主旨报告。

中国社会科学院社会政法学部主任、民族所所长、学部委员郝时远教授会见了加拿大学者，对林小华和关键夫妇来访表示欢迎，希望进一步加强中加双方的学术交流与合作。座谈会由民族所科研处处长邸永君博士主持。

林小华教授和关键博士通过其近年来对加拿大华人社区的深入访谈，探讨了技术创新和人口移民之间的理论和实践意义。他们指出，加拿大现在面临着来自于提高技术创新特别是技术商业化的严峻挑战。在阻碍技术创新的众多因素中，其中之一是缺少能够技术创新（从知识创新到知识在市场中传播）的人才。为了缓解这一局面，加拿大政府作出了部分的补偿措施，制定移民政策，吸引国际高学历专业人士帮助建立国家技术部门。然而，到目前为止，虽然加拿大吸引了大量高学历的外国移民，这项措施的实施效果却不尽如人意。这些国际高学历专业人士都没有能够进入他们的对口行业，而是大多进入两类行业：（1）进入零售和服务行业，他们的技能都没有发挥或者发挥得不够；（2）返回祖国，这样他们可以利用他们的技能和社会联系抓住创业机遇。当这些国际高学历专业人士返回祖国时，通常都有这样一种假设，这种移民的反向流动会导致“人才流失”，在历史上，这个现象是同贫穷和发展中国家联系在一起的。尽管有一些学者看到了国际高学历专业人士回国带来的效益，如双边贸易和投资，大多数研究者还是认为，这种移民反向流动挫败了加拿大利用国际高学历专业人士加强本国经济和创新活动的目的。

林小华和关键的调查研究认为，国际高学历专业人士带来的跨国创业活动不仅对加拿大有益，对中国也有益，为了知识的健康流动提供了机会。这种“人才循环”是怎样发生的？加拿大怎样从这种跨国企业家的跨国流动中获益？首先，中国的跨国企业家都具有高学历，高素质，专业实力雄厚，大都拥有在中国和加拿大两国的工作背景，特别是在一些案例中，还有一些个人拥有多国的教育和工作经历。这些人不是返回中国，而是把家定居在加拿大，跨国生活。跨国移民社区和归国人员的主要区别在于，在跨国投资行为中，跨国企业家强烈的希望吸纳加拿大，而不仅仅是把加拿大当作居住地。其次，根据跨国企业家的技能和教育背景，它们的经济活动包含了知识流动和技术创新。在行业类型和创新本质的基础上，一个跨国企业家会选择从多种方式吸纳中国。换句话来说，跨国企业家们会通过各种机制在跨界创新活动中联结加拿大和中国。再次，在创新的商业化过程中吸纳中国有多种原因，包括中国的人才库，日益提升的研发能力，在某些技术领域知识与技能的互补，以及越来越适宜商业化的环境，还有巨大的市场能力。考虑到个人企业家在国家技术发展中的影响，中国企业家指出，回国企业家在一些高技术领域（如因特网搜索引擎）担当了先锋，或者是帮助国家在新兴技术的发展中（如纳米技术）。最后，也是最重要的，加拿大可以从这种跨界活动中受益：利用中国的创新理念和原创研发；为可靠的知识转型提供必要的产品可能；加强在中国、加拿大和其他国家技术产品的销售。

林小华和关键强调，尽管跨国创新活动前景美好，但跨国企业家还是表达了一些担忧：尽管他们希望能够在加拿大安家，但是总会有一些挑战强迫他们在中国和加拿大之间做出选择。这些挑战包括：国内和国际对知识产权和关税等规章制度的不确定性、获得金融、人力资本和缺少信任与支持的社会网络等资源的困难等。比如，跨国企业家要想在加拿大获得风险投资十分困难。另一方面，中国的风险投资行业却蓬勃发展，特别对海外华人人才。但要想获得这些风险投资的条件是必须在中国开办公司。这些中国的跨国企业家不禁要问，为什么加拿大不能采取类似的措施，欢迎、支持并鼓励在加拿大土壤中进行创新活动的本土和跨国投资？显然，把跨国企业家视为国际创新连接式一个大胆的尝试，需要在大方向等问题上作一些根本的改变，主要是从参与全球供应链，推动跨国企业家为加拿大经济做出贡献的过程中，努力吸引创新利益。林小华和关键认为，这个探索性的研究揭示了企业人类学作为一门跨学科的潜力，特别是从加拿大-中国跨国比较研究的角度。这些分析将人类学理论和方法应用到技术创新的研究中，可以在以下领域做出贡献：（1）个人企业家。哪些抱负、天赋资源和文化特质可以是个人追求高风险同时又是高回报的创新行为？（2）创新网络。个人企业家之间的网络如何推动企业内部和企业之间的创新？（3）国家创新体系中的人们。在一个国家中政府、制度和个人互动并产生创新的过程中，企业家的角色是什么？（4）跨界创新联结。个人企业家怎样联结跨界创新活动？（5）创新中的认知和文化适应。跨国企业家通过跨文化认知活动推动国际知识流动和整合的过程中，起到了什么样的作用？

来自南开大学商学院的杨俊博士、中央财经大学社会学系的尉建文博士、中国社会科学院张继焦研究员作了专题发言，其发言题目依次为：《创新性机会识别：创业者的网络结构与网络资源》、《民营企业的社会网络》、《对28位华商和经理人的访谈及其分析：马来西亚华人的成功经验》。中加两国学者围绕企业人类学的理论和实践，展开了一场管理学与人类学之间的对话。出席会议的还有美国康乃尔大学人类学系博士研究生Matthew Erie先生，中国社会科学院民族所加拿大研究中心张小敏、邓卫荣、殷鹏、杜发春等10余人。与会学者认为，在市场化和全球化的时代，企业已经成为我们这个社会的重要主体之一，并得到了很多非经济管理类学科（如人类学、社会学等）的关注和研究。企业人类学是一门综合了文化人类学、社会学、经营管理学、经济学、广告、组织行为学、人力资源学、市场营销学、消费者心理学等专门领域的新兴的分支学科。显然，中加学者之间联合开展和推动企业人类学的研究，将会具有较广阔的发展前景。

（中国社会科学院民族所加拿大研究中心  杜发春供稿）


Canada-China Workshop on Enterprise Anthropology：Ryerson University Professors visited CASS

On August 5th 2008, Canada-China Workshop on Enterprise Anthropology was held in the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Chinese Academic of Social Sciences (IEA/ CASS). Dr. Howard Lin, Professor & Director, International Research Institute at Ryerson University Canada, and Dr. Jian Guan, Program Evaluation Coordinator of Gateway for International Professionals at Ryerson University, were invited to visit IEA/CASS and to deliver a keynote speech in this event.

Prof. HAO Shiyuan, Director of Academic Division of Law, Social and Political Studies at CASS, Director of CASS/IEA, and Academic Council Member of CASS, welcomed Ryerson University Professors, and hope to strengthen the academic links between CASS and Ryerson University. Dr. Diyongjun, Director of the Sciences Organizing Department at IEA/CASS chaired this Canada-China workshop. More than 10 participants attended this seminar from Nankai University, Central University of Finance & Economics, and CASS.

In their keynote speech titled “Transnational Entrepreneurs as Agents of International Innovation Linkages: Canadian Case Study”, Dr. Howard Lin and Dr. Jian Guan pointed out that this Canadian case study explores a topic of theoretical and practice significance in the intersection of technological innovation and human migration. It is widely recognized that Canada faces a serious challenge: that of improving technological innovation, particularly commercialization performance. Among the various barriers to innovation is the scarcity of people capable of carrying out innovation activities ranging from the creation of knowledge to dissemination in the marketplace. As a partial remedy, Canada has adopted immigration policy designed to attract internationally educated professionals (IEPs) to help build the country’s technology sectors. At present, it appears that this objective has not been entirely successful despite the increasing number of skilled immigrants with increased levels of education. Many IEPs, unable to enter the profession for which they have training and experience, are seen to be gravitating towards two unanticipated solutions: 1) Participate in the retail and service sectors, where their skills of are largely unused or under-used; or 2) Return to the country of origin where the IEPs can pursue entrepreneurial opportunities by utilizing their skills and social connections. When the IEPs return to their countries of origin, there is often an assumption that this reverse-migration amounts to “brain drain”, a phenomenon that is historically associated with poor and developing countries. While some authors have observed certain benefits of the trend to IEP repatriation, such as bilateral trade and investment, most researchers believe that this reverse-migration has defeated the objective of using IEPs to enhance Canada’s knowledge economy and innovation performance. The APF-sponsored transnational study provides a better picture through recently completed, extensive fieldwork with the Chinese community in Canada.

Dr. Howard Lin’s and Dr. Jian Guan’s findings suggest that transnational entrepreneurial activities carried out by the IEPs may benefit the Canada as well as China, and thus offer opportunities for a healthy circulation of knowledge. How does this “brain circulation” occur, and how can Canada benefit from this trans-national activity facilitated by the transnational entrepreneurs (TEs)? First, The Chinese TEs are highly skilled and educated, professionally established, and likely to have educational credentials and work experience in both China and Canada – indeed in some cases, individuals have multinational education and work experience beyond the two countries. Rather than clearly repatriating to China, an increasing number of these professionals have adopted a transnational lifestyle with Canada as their home base. A key difference between the transnational and the returnee segments of the immigrant community is that the transnational entrepreneurs are more likely to maintain a strong desire to engage Canada in their cross-border entrepreneurial endeavours in addition to choosing Canada as their home base. Second, given the TEs’ skills and educational backgrounds, their business tends to entail knowledge flows and technological innovations. Depending on factors such as the types of the industry and nature of the innovation, a TE may choose to engage China in a variety of ways. In other words, TEs have followed different mechanisms to link Canada and China in cross-border innovative activities. Third, the reason for engaging China in the commercialization of innovation is multiple folds, including China’s large talent pool, its dramatic increase in R&D expenditures, the existence of complementary knowledge and skills in certain technological fields, and an increasingly more favourable environment for commercialization, as well as the huge market size. Regarding to the impact of individual entrepreneurs in national technological performance, the Chinese entrepreneurs cited the recent development in China wherein the returnee entrepreneurs have pioneered some of the high-technology sectors (e.g., Internet search engine) or helped position the country at the forefront of emerging new technologies (e.g., Nano technology). Lastly, and importantly, Canada can reap broad benefits from such cross-border activities by: Taking advantage of innovative ideas and original research from China; Enabling production possibilities necessary for viable knowledge transformation; Enhancing ability to sell technology-embedded products in Canada and China and other global markets.

Despite the promise of cross-border innovation activities, the TEs expressed deep concerns with challenges that may force the TEs to make a Canada-or-China choice even though they prefer Canada as a home base. The challenges include the uncertainties with respect to regulatory frameworks on intellectual property rights, taxation, etc. within and across countries; and difficulties with respect to sources of such necessities as financing, human capital, and social networking absence of civil and community trust and support. For example, it is very difficult for a TE to get venture capital funding in Canada. On the other hand, the venture capital sector is booming in China and is particularly open to the overseas Chinese talent. However, the condition for obtaining this venture capital investment is to set up the business in China. The Chinese TEs ask, why can Canada not adopt similarly welcoming and supportive policies to encourage indigenous and transnational investment in innovative activities in the Canadian soil? Clearly, using TEs as international innovation linkages is a bold proposition, requiring some fundamental changes in orientation, chiefly to make a conscious effort to gain innovation benefits from participation in the global supply chain and to promote TEs as an alternative way for immigrants to contribute to the Canadian economy.

Regarding the Enterprise Anthropology (EA), Dr. Howard Lin’s and Dr. Jian Guan mentioned that this Canadian exploratory study reveals the potential of EA. As an interdisciplinary research field, particularly from a cross-country comparative perspective.Applying anthropological theories and methods to the study of technological innovation, the analysis can be performed at the following levels: Individual entrepreneurs. What are the aspirations, resource endowments, and cultural characteristics necessary for individuals to pursue potentially highly awarding but risky innovative activities? Networks of innovation. How do networks between individual entrepreneurs facilitate innovation within and between enterprises? People in national innovation systems. What are the roles of entrepreneurs within national boundary wherein innovation occur as a result of interactions among government, institutions, and individuals? Cross-border innovation linkages. How do individual entrepreneurs serve as linkages in border-crossing innovations? Cognition and acculturation in innovation. What roles do transnational entrepreneurs play in facilitating international knowledge transfer and integration through cross-cultural cognitive capabilities?

Dr. ZHANG Jijiao from CASS, Dr.YANG Jun from the Nankai University, Dr. WEI Jianwen from the Central University of Finance & Economics, also had their presentations on EA and exchanged views with Canadian Professors. They stressed that with the situation of business globalization, demand for enterprise anthropologists is increasing stimulated by a growing need for anthropologists who can approach human behavior. All participants believed that this Canada-China workshop would promote EA studies for both countries, and kind of academic exchange programs on Chinese Immigrants in Canada should be continued and deepened.

(Written by DU Fachun, CASS)