Two recent blurbs about the Chinese economy reflect how the country has been progressing in terms of the transparency and accountability of its companies.
A recent McKinsey Quarterly report, entitled “Reassessing China’s state-owned enterprises“, talks about an emerging new paradigm for judging Chinese businesses. In the authors’ words, “openness, not ownership, is key.” Rather than using a business’ ownership structure as the prima facie evaluative tool, a company’s openness — in terms of its partnerships, hiring practices, supply chain management, and R&D spending — are the new crucibles for competitiveness. In other words, the speed and ease of adaptability to changing conditions is paramount.
Another article in the Financial Times discusses how China is now the global leader, ahead of both the US and Japan, in terms of the number of patents being issued to companies (700,000 last year alone, and more than quadruple 2000 numbers).
Will budding interest in intellectual property rights create increased accountability in a marketplace notorious for piracy? And more importantly, as the McKinsey report suggests, does this even matter in such a fast-paced economy where the threat of obsolescence could be replacing the threat of piracy?