Organized Chinese Transnationalism and the Institutionalization of Business Networks: The Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry as a Case Analysis

Abstract

Over the past few years, transnationalism and network analysis have received increasing attention among students of the Chinese Diaspora in the Asia-Pacific. Yet the two subjects have been treated separately and the existing literature tends to focus on the personal/informal dimensions of Chinese (transnational) business networks, paying little attention to their historical precedents and formal institutionalization. Using the influential Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCCI) as a case study, this paper attempts to establish the historical linkages between organized Chinese transnationalism and the institutionalization of business networks. It aims to broaden the horizons of existing scholarship on personal and informal patterns of Chinese transnationalism by delineating the complex mechanisms and agencies through which SCCCI was vitalized and connected to the institutionalizing, regionalizing-and, eventually, globalizing-processes of multi-dimensional Chinese social and business networks in Asia.