Workshop on Enterprise Anthropology
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)
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)
canada
2008-08-13 22:28:01
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