Some reflections on ‘entrepreneur‐ship’ and the Chinese community of a west Malaysian market town*

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Abstract
Ethnographic and historical data on Chinese in a West Malaysian market town are employed in a critique of conventional views of ‘entrepreneurship’. On the basis of an analysis of operation of family firms and relations between employers and employees in the town's truck transport industry, and in view of the contemporary political economy of Malaysia, it is argued that the reigning concept of ‘entrepreneurship’ should be deconstructed into its constituent elements ‐ risk‐taking, innovation, property ownership, etc. It is concluded that past generalizations about Chinese ‘entrepreneurship’ are anachronous, given the present dominance of oligopoly capitalism in Malaysia and elsewhere in Southeast Asia.

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