Event

Cheris Shun-ching Chan, Professor of Sociology, University of Hong Kong

Based on ethnographic data, Chan presents how a commercial life insurance market is emerging in mainland China despite incompatible local cultural values, particularly the ingrained cultural taboo on the topic of death. She discusses how transnational and domestic insurance firms dealt with local cultural resistance differently, and how local culture shapes the trajectory of the market development. By further examining the life insurance development in Taiwan and Hong Kong as compared to China, Chan argues that the nature of the dominant firms in the field affects the extent of localization of a global enterprise and its growth in a specific locale.