Book Description

Since the early 1990s, Singapore's model of industrialization to plan, build and administer industrial parks integrated with commercial, residential and leisure facilities developed over four decades in the Singapore context has been commodified as part of Singapore's regionalization strategy to extend its 'economic wing' and exported to countries such as Indonesia (1992), China (1993, 1994,2008,2010), Vietnam (1996) and India (2004). This thesis analyses Singapore and China's economic collaboration in the planning, building and administering of the Suzhou Industrial Park, Suzhou, China. The aim of the research is to study the effects of the Singapore model of industrialization in the industrialization of Suzhou on the local citizenry of Suzhou and how the fmdings could inform cross-cultural transnational management practices. Using postcolonialism as an analytical framework, the fmdings reveal that the Singapore model of industrialization is undergirded by 'centrally-planned' or 'organized' capitalism which involves the state playing the key role of corporate entity and acting as the investment unit through government corporations. The fmdings also reveal the totalizing nature of the model and the special privileges awarded to the SIP segregates the SIP from the rest of China. In addition, by using postcolonialism to unravel the complexities of the economic collaboration, the findings reveal how management practices developed in a foreign context and exported to a host environment created dichotomous relationships between the foreign and local management teams. In sum, the research study reveals the totalizing nature of Singapore's brand of capitalism inherent in the Singapore model of industrialization mimics many of capitalism's characteristics but at the same time departs from its fundamental principles. The case study of the SIP illustrates the Singapore model of industrialization delivers 'centrally planned' or 'organized' capitalism. I.