166
managerial succession is made more difficult. Patronage cannot easily be transferred to ensure the perpetuation of the enterprise.
The ideal of self-employment is not uniquely Chinese. It is also found to be an essential part of the American 'dream' in a land where social ascent is similarly treasured, (Mayer 1953: 160-180). How is this dream reconciled with the need for stable and dedicated corporate personnel? The chairman of Mill 22 was aware of the Western solution to this problem, but he did not think it practicable in Hong Kong:
'In the West, there is a contract system to control the subordinates. Contracts are made for, say, two years and then renewed. This will check the managers, and they will watch their step because of the uncertainty. I am sure you have read the news recently of the dismissal of the top executive of Ford. I saw it work in the West. In the Brussels' Fair in the 1950s, I was struck by the maxim written on the banner of a display counter: "If Heaven should fall tomorrow, I would still plan today". But the Chinese don't act like that. If you don't know whether you will be fired next year, why should you work like hell? This is a difficult management problem.'
The Western system of contracts for senior executives is often accompanied by a profit-sharing scheme as an incentive for the executives. This tends to reduce the attraction of self-employment and enable the firms to recruit and keep ambitious and capable employees. How did the spinners regard the admission of senior executives to the circle of owners in their companies?
Profit sharing
The desire to confine ownership rights to a chosen few emerged when I asked the spinners on their preferences for the public and private form of company organization. They were evenly divided in their opinions on the relative merits of these two forms, as shown in Table 10. The reasons they gave for their decisions indicated that the notion of a diffused 'public' as owners and the related idea of a 'corporation' as an independent and enduring entity have not taken hold among them. Those