ABSTRACT
This chapter and Chapter 6 explore the embedded relationships between business and social networks and the South-east Asian (ASEAN) operations of Hong Kong transnational corporations (HKTNCs). Together, they seek to explain, via the network framework elaborated in Chapter 3 (pp. 58-78), the processes and mechanisms through which HKTNCs establish their ASEAN operations. The key to understanding this network perspective is that transnational business organisations and their structures largely serve to implement, but not necessarily to follow, corporate strategies (cf. Chandler, 1962; Limlingan, 1986). This happens because the final outcomes of transnational strategies are influenced by myriad powerful forces such as the state and other TNCs (see Figure 3.1). Although the previous chapter has set out the role of market and marketing-related strategies in explaining why HKTNCs extend their operations into the ASEAN region, it is far from clear how such strategies are accomplished and implemented. Central to my argument in this and the next chapter, therefore, is the notion that market and market-related strategies can be implemented through networks of personal and business relationships. Because these network relationships are socially and geographically embedded, they presuppose corporate strategies. It is necessary for us to understand these network relationships in order to appreciate fully the nature and impact of the corporate strategies discussed in Chapter 4.
