I found the article “China, India, and the Socioeconomic Determinants of Their Competitiveness” by Claudia Grupe and Axel Rose suitable for a critical summary. This article examines and compares the social, historical, and cultural elements that affect the two countries’ global competitiveness. Grupe and Axel Rose argue that an ideal economic determining factor needs to be more applicable in explaining the competitive potential of a country. Therefore, they evaluated qualitative and quantifiable statistics to measure the country’s social and economic factors affecting its performance.
Important Idea of The Paper
The essential idea of the paper is to analyze the socioeconomic factors that contribute to the long-lasting global competition standard and financial growth of China and India to the extent that the two have become ethnic states. Grupe and Rose (2010) argue that despite successful economic reforms, cultural principles, and accrual of social capital, the presence of social systems is an essential incentive for enduring international competitiveness and economic expansion, which helped the two countries to rise drastically.
Main Argument of the Article
Key arguments in the articles are the first traditional model of trade, which introduces the topic of the competitiveness of China and India and highlights the importance of socioeconomic factors in their development. The paper discusses the shortcomings of the traditional trade model and neoclassical theory in explaining competitiveness. Socioeconomic factors support the argument that cultural values and social capital are great contributors to the aggressiveness of China and India.
The second argument is Jump Start of the Giant. The paper briefly analyzes China and India’s economic development and how market-oriented reforms have boosted the countries’ growth and rise since the 1980s. This is supported by entrepreneurial behavior and the argument that the determining factor of competitiveness is the level of entrepreneurial performance and behavior. Strategic management has mainly contributed to the empirical analysis of competitiveness. The cultural dimension of economic activity is the third argument. The cultural dimension of economic behavior and how values and norms of society manifest themselves in social, organizational structures, and behavioral patterns can contribute to or harm competitiveness. It points out the two countries’ ethical beliefs and norms and highlights how these ethical issues contributed to the rise of these two ethical states. The article concludes that both China and India profit from cultural values conducive to economic development, such as appreciation of work and education. This motivates the companies and organizations, increasing the organization’s performance and contributing to growth in the country’s GDP and socioeconomic sustainability. Despite that, the two nations lack social capital, which acts as a hindrance to their progress. This is happening in these countries because, in the case of India, they have a pluralist kind of society and archaic status thinking, while Chinese society is structured in a homogenous kind of society with a hierarchy system of politics.
Critically Judgement of the Arguments
According to Claudia Grupe and Axel Rose, cultural values, social capital, and social networks are essential for any country to remain competitive and develop. The article is well-structured and provides a clear argument, supported by evidence from the World Values Survey and other sources. One potential bias in this article is that it focuses primarily on cultural and social factors while restraining the role of economic policies and institutions (Grupe and Rose, 2010). This is biased since the article could have focused extensively and involved arguments and statistics from other sectors like policies and the institution’s contribution to the ethical state of the duo-countries; also, the authors acknowledge the importance of market-oriented reforms in China and India’s economic development, they argue later that cultural values and social capital are equally important.
However, how much weight should be given to each factor and whether cultural values and social capital can overcome poor economic policies and institutions is still being determined. The authors also make some assumptions about the relationship between cultural values and economic development. For example, the authors argue that appreciating work and education in China and India contributes to national competitiveness (Grupe and Rose 2010). However, it needs to be clarified how much of this appreciation is driven by cultural values and how much results from economic incentives and opportunities. Similarly, the authors further argue that the lack of social capital in both countries is a significant barrier to economic development. However, how much of this lack of social capital results from cultural factors? The author needs to explain the extent of the results of economic and political factors.
Despite the failures of Claudia Grupe and Axel Rose to explain their arguments well, the article provides a well-supported argument. It supports its claims by using evidence from the World Values Survey, the National Bureau of Statistics, and other sources. For example, the authors use data from the World Values Survey to prove that hard work is essential and commonly acknowledged in China and India and that the appreciation of work correlates with education. They also used the World Value Survey data to show that interpersonal trust is lower in India than in China and that corruption is more rampant in India than in China. Grupe and Axel Rose aligned their argument and evidence well by clearly defining key terms and concepts and using tables and figures to illustrate their points (Grupe and Rose 2010). For example, they use Figure 3 to show the attitude toward work in China and India and Table 2 to compare the determinants of competitiveness in both countries. They also provide a detailed analysis of the World Values Survey data, using multiple regression analysis to identify the factors contributing to national competitiveness.
The article provides a valuable contribution to the literature on the competitiveness of China and India. It highlights the importance of considering cultural and social factors in addition to economic policies and institutions (Grupe and Rose, 2010). However, the paper also has some limitations, including a potential bias toward cultural and social factors and some assumptions about the relationship between cultural values and economic development. Overall, the article provides a helpful framework for understanding the historical rise of China and India as ethnic states and the factors that have contributed to their economic success. The paper encourages critical thinking about the complex interplay between economic policies, cultural values, and social structures and highlights the importance of considering these factors in any analysis of international competitiveness and economic development.
Reference
Grupe, C., & Rose, A. (2010). China, India, and the socioeconomic determinants of their competitiveness. Economics Research International, 2010.
write