The recent JMS Point–Counterpoint debate on varieties of socio-economic systems raises vital questions about contextualising Management and Organisation Research (MOR) in a multipolar world. Both Bruton et al.’s Point and the Counterpoint by Foss et al. offer valuable insights, and Wickert’s introduction provides an excellent frame for advancing the conversation.
However, a fundamental issue in Bruton et al. remains underexamined in the accompanying essays: the reliance of official rhetoric and self-descriptions — rather than more granular institutional analysis and empirical evidence — to characterise contemporary political–economic systems. This approach risks generating conceptual distortions that may mislead MOR scholarship.
Bruton et al. draw on Roemer’s (2021) definition of socialism as an “ethos of cooperative behaviour aiming to ensure equal opportunities and outcomes”. They then classify several countries as “socialist” because they self-identify as such in their constitutions, leading to the claim that “over 43% of the world’s population” lives in “socialist societies”. Combined, these moves create the impression that the institutional environments in such countries are fundamentally distinguished by egalitarian and cooperative features.
This characterisation is problematic. Commonly used indicators of equality, such as the Gini index, paint a very different picture. According to the latest World Bank data, China and the United States both record Gini scores above 35, placing them among the most unequal major economies. Likewise, countries that Bruton et al. identify as systems “seeking to achieve equality in opportunities and outcomes”, such as Vietnam (36) and Guyana (45), also exhibit levels of inequality notably higher than those of Germany and Japan (around 32), and unsurprisingly above those of Nordic countries — including Finland, Norway and Sweden—which all fall below 30. Such patterns sit uneasily with the ethos-of-equality definition of socialism that Bruton et al. adopt.
The limitation of Bruton et al.’s classification becomes more evident when examining individual countries. For example, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) self-describes as both democratic and socialist, yet independent assessments depict it as a highly stratified society — neither democratic nor equal in practice (Freedom House, 2024). The gap between constitutional rhetoric and institutional reality is substantial.
China’s case is more complex. While scholarship and international indicators document significant progress in areas such as gender equality (UNDP, 2025), the country continues facing challenges in improving equality in other areas. In the Mao-era, although ‘socialism’ was already inscribed in official discourse and constitutional language, governance was characterised by pronounced hierarchy and entrenched privilege (Nee, 1989). Access to food, housing, and material goods was allocated according to political rank. Far from reflecting an egalitarian ethos, the political and economic structures of the period contributed to the Great Famine, one of the most tragic episodes of the twentieth century.
It is also inaccurate for Bruton et al. to attribute the notion of “socialism with Chinese characteristics” to Mao (p.4). The term and associated ideological framework were introduced after 1978 under Deng Xiaoping to justify market-oriented reforms. This historical inaccuracy suggests an insufficient engagement with the political evolution of the country under study.
Since the reform era, China has embraced market principles to an extent unimaginable during Mao period, yet some structural inequalities persist. For example, disparities between urban and rural residents contribute to the challenging conditions experienced by many migrant labourers (农民工), whose low-wage work underpinned China’s early low-cost manufacturing competitiveness (Chan, 2003).
The analytical distortions in Bruton et al.’s approach can also be seen in their treatment of China’s recent regulatory interventions targeting major technology companies such as Tencent and Ant Group, and the state’s acquisition of “golden shares” in firms like Alibaba, ByteDance, and Weibo. Bruton et al. interpret these actions as driven primarily by “common prosperity.” Yet these interventions can just as plausibly be understood as similar to anti-monopoly actions observed in Western economies, or as measures shaped by techno-nationalist concerns given the strategic importance of these firms. This perspective aligns more closely with longstanding analyses of state capitalism, in which governments maintain influence over strategic sectors, while market-driven, profit-maximising behaviour predominates elsewhere.
Equally problematic is the implication in Bruton et al. that publicly traded firms controlled by founders or their families in China are uniformly subject to direct party control (p. 13). In reality, private entrepreneurs in non-strategic sectors frequently operate in ways indistinguishable from their counterparts in liberal capitalist systems. In these areas, competition and profit pressures shape firm behaviour more than ideology. This hybrid configuration cannot be meaningfully captured through an ethos-centric understanding of socialism.
This suggests that while the notion of “varieties of capitalism”— and Bruton et al.’s proposed extension to “varieties of socialism” — represents an improvement over single, monolithic labels, these categories still lack sufficient depth. In practice, elements commonly associated with socialism and capitalism often coexist within the same national systems, sometimes in tension, sometimes mutually reinforcing, and ultimately producing distinctive institutional configurations in each country.
Capturing these dynamics in MOR research requires deeper engagement with the historical evolution of institutions, the interplay between official rhetoric and lived realities, and the multiple faces that institutional environments present to different actors. In this regard, decades of work in economic history, political science, and comparative capitalism offer rich intellectual resources for MOR scholars.
Recognising these institutional nuances provides MOR scholars — including those studying entrepreneurship — a more empirically grounded basis for theorising China and other so-called socialist contexts. This may partly explain why a search by Bruton et al. for “socialism + entrepreneurship” yields few articles in FT50 journals; scholars working on these institutional environments may avoid simplistic labels because they do not adequately reflect the underlying complexity.
In short, Bruton et al. (2025) inadvertently illustrate the very issue the Point–Counterpoint debate seeks to foreground: the fragility of theorising when it rests on an overly superficial understanding of institutional context. For MOR scholarship to advance in a multipolar world, greater conceptual and empirical granularity are essential.
References
Bruton, G., Li, J. and Gautam, D. (2025). ‘Embracing a multipolar world: Management and organization scholars and varieties of socialism’. Journal of Management Studies.
Chan, A. (2003). A “Race to the Bottom”: Globalisation and China’s labour standards. China Perspectives, 46.
Freedom House. (2024). Freedom in the World 2024: North Korea. Washington, DC: Freedom House. https://freedomhouse.org/country/north-korea/freedom-world/2024
Nee, V. (1989). ‘A theory of market transition: From redistribution to markets in state socialism’. American Sociological Review, 663-681
UNDP. (2025). Gender Inequality Index (GII). Human Development Reports Data Center. United Nations Development Programme, available from https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/thematic-composite-indices/gender-inequality-index
