Global economic integration, widening communication networks and government policies supportive of private enterprise are changing the opportunities for accumulating wealth, status and power in Asia in unprecedented ways. This is accompanied by the development of highly sophisticated service enterprises, such as banks, law, accountancy and consultancy firms and IT businesses, which provide access to the resources required for a profitable connection to the wider world.
This volume investigates whether these producer services thrive in Asia's high performing economies much as they do in the West. It has a three-tiered approach focusing on:
* The role of producer service enterprises in channeling the access to markets, capital and commercial knowledge
* Opportunities for social mobility within the expanding services sector itself
* The role played by the state as facilitator of middle class economic prosperity and progress, incubator of capitalism and provder of political stability, employment, education and legal frameworks for business operation as opposed to a state that operates through patronage to established elites.
The authors collected here examine producer services and social mobility within the context of specific Asian nation states--including China, India, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore.
