Understanding the divergence of manufacturing enterprisesʼ profitability in China

ABSTRACT

The transition of the Chinese economy is placing increasing pressure on manufacturing enterprises to become more profitable. In this article, we first calculate and analyze the profitability of Chinese manufacturing enterprises based on data from the 2015 Chinese Enterprises–Employees Survey (CEES 2015), and find that there is an obvious profitability divergence tendency of manufacturing enterprises. We then analyze the different actions and strategies that may cause the profitability divergence and find that aggressive strategies in innovation, diversification, market development, and conservative strategies in production expansion tend to result in a good profitability, while the opposite strategies in each action lead a poor profitability. The different adoption of strategies in diverse actions may the possible causes of profitability divergence.

Abbreviations: CEES: China Employer-Employee Survey, PGR: Profit growth rate, SME: Small and medium-sized enterprise     

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