Part A: Institutional Context
The Important of Institutional Context in Asian Business System
Business system is a specific structure of firm-market relations that had been functioned by all countries in order to administer the activity of the economic. There are many varieties of business system that can be identified in Asian environment as every Asian country has its own national business system (NBS). Some of the NBSs have similarities, some have differentiations, and some are more complex compare to another. Because of this situation, the Asian NBSs can only be understood in an institutional context because it views the systems from many different angles or perspectives such as culture, state, financial system, education, legal system, family, and labour, which will create benefit as it results a clear picture in regard to the strategic behaviour used by every Asian countries for their NBSs (Ellington 1995; Whitley 1998).
Furthermore, Whitley also argues that ‘the business system have become established in particular institutional contexts as the dominant ways of restructuring economic activities’ that cause the identification and evaluation of the NBSs through the institutional context will create a better understanding in terms of the three basic dimensions of Asian business systems such as strategic choice, nature of economic agents, and market organization (Whitley 1992 cited in Whitley 1998, p. 214). For example, in term of strategic choice, it can be identified the type of business system, the nature of decision making, employees-employer commitment, the manager-worker differentiation, task discretion, and the level of specialisation; in terms of nature of economic agent, it can be analysed the diversity of activities, the level of change in activities, the nature of ownership, risk strategies, and growth oriented; and in terms of market organization, it can be examined the extent of vertical and horizontal co-ordinations (Whitley 1998; Kahal...