Study On The Power Struggle Of Gome:a Perspective Of The Relationship Between Action And Structure

The enterprise has become the focus of the economic sociological studies, whose healthy development is also the inevitable requirement of economic growth. At present, how to understand correctly the contradictions during the public transformation of the family business, how to deal with properly the relations between the enterprise’s internal management and the external environment and how to treat rightly the competition and cooperation between the national capital and international one are the realistic problems faced by Chinese enterprises’ development and the subjects concentrated by theoretical studies as well.In most researches, the author considers that the case study regarding these problems is the most attractive, which can provide more general theories of enterprise change with building materials. This manner, with the case of words, is an explanation for the concept, and a typical instance can furnish much more contents than any theoretical model. The power struggle of Gome has become a representative case under the globalization background of Chinese enterprises. Going deep into this study can not only help to extend the practice of the modern enterprise system in China, but also contribute to promote the further development of the corresponding Chinese economic sociological theories.This dissertation takes the process of the power struggle of Gome as the research object, uses Giddens’ theory of structuration and Lin Nan’s social capital theory and introduces the process-event analysis strategy to describe and analyze the inner logic and the dramatic evolution mechanism of the power struggle of Gome from the perspective of the relationship between action and structure. Revealing the interaction between structure and action and its features in the event can deepen our understanding of the factors of social structure and action influencing Chinese enterprises’growth, which can also provide us some valuable ideas to handle and solve the realistic problems of enterprises’development from micro and macro aspects.This dissertation consists of five parts. Chapter Ⅰ is an introduction, which involves the background of the research, the significance of the research, research methods, the present research status at home and aboard, the research framework and the possible innovation and shortcoming.Chapter Ⅱ mainly introduces the relationship between social structure and action, which is the classic theme of the theoretical study of sociology touched by the power struggle of Gome. In this part, the author expounds Giddens’ theory of structuration and Lin Nan’s social capital theory based on the interaction between social structure and action, which are determined as the theoretical base of this dissertation.Chapter Ⅲ from the perspective of the relationship between structure and action describes and analyzes the process and essence of the power struggle of Gome, including the emergence and escalation of the contradiction, temporary balance and the torsion of the current situation. Besides, it discloses the essence of the event through the power struggle within the enterprise, the competition between national and international capital, the social influence of the public opinion and the government’s strategic choice. This is one of the keystones of this research.Based on the description and analysis of the power struggle of Gome, Chapter Ⅳthrough the aspects of the action’s initiative showed in the control power contest, the binding structure of the board-centrism and the bidirectional construction between action and structure deeply explains the core theme of the sociological research, namely the relationship between social structure and action, which is embedded in the event. On this basis, it can improve our further cognition of this event and verify the power of interpreting reality of the sociological theories. This is the other focus of this research.Chapter V summarizes that the power struggle of Gome is not only a classical case which the enterprise reconciles the inner contradictions under the frame of law, but also touches the relationship between action and structure which is the core problem of sociological theories. The further research on this event can provide us some valuable ideas to handle and solve the realistic problems of enterprises’ growth from micro and macro aspects. Through the method of case extension, the analysis indicates the social location and its manifestations of the state or government which takes an invisible and special role during process of the competition between national and international capital in the background of globalization, which points out a possible direction for the future research.