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Stephen Morgan

Associate Professor, Reader and Deputy Research Director, Faculty of Social Sciences

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Biography

Dr. Stephen Morgan joined the School of Contemporary Chinese Studies at Nottingham University as an associate professor in September 2007, after many years as a senior lecturer in Asian economic history at the University of Melbourne. He has more than 30 years of experience studying and writing about China.

In an earlier life, he was a journalist with, among others, the Standard Newspapers in Melbourne, a China-based contributor to the South China Morning Post, the chief correspondent of the Hong Kong Standard, as well as the assistant political and business editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review.

His primary research lies in the fields of economic and business history of 18th-20th Century China, while mostly teaching graduate and undergraduate programmes in international business and strategic management. In 2006, he became the Co-Editor of the Australian Economic History Review, the only English-language journal that specialises in the economic, business and social history of the Asia-Pacific region, including Australasia.

Please click here for the full CV of Dr Morgan.

Expertise Summary

Economic and business history of China, 18th-20th centuries; Anthropometric approaches to the study Chinese health, nutrition, welfare and the standard of living; Comparative economic development; Famines in China; International business and strategic management in contemporary China; Australian foreign direct investment in China; Chinese State Firms (Red Chips) listed in Hong Kong; Chinese secret societies in the 19th and 20th centuries; Impact of township and village enterprises on urbanisation in China.

Teaching Summary

T13172, Undergraduate Dissertation

T14104, Management for China

T14105, Human Resource Management and Marketing for China

Research Summary

Dr. Morgan's research has made extensive use of what many would consider the administrative detritus of modern organisations to construct time series and narratives that enable us to understand life,… read more

Selected Publications

Current Research

Dr. Morgan's research has made extensive use of what many would consider the administrative detritus of modern organisations to construct time series and narratives that enable us to understand life, work and welfare of the Chinese in the past, such as personnel records, pension files, immigration records and prison registers.

His current research is focused in two broad areas of economic, business and social development in China.

Firstly, a continuing research interest is the use of anthropometric (height, weight, BMI) and related methods to estimate the long-run change in the standard of living in China. Recent research has included studies of 19th century living standards, the impact of famine and other shocks on Chinese welfare, the recent trends in regional inequality using height data, and the emerging epidemic of obesity among Chinese youth in the post-reform period. In late 2010 he began exploring the impact of early globalisation on China using height and factor price data going back to the 17th century. This research is funded by a recent British Academy Research Development Award (£102k).

Secondly, he uses social network analysis and bibliometric methods to study the transfer, diffusion and adaptation of western management knowhow in China during 20th century. In particular the focus has been on the types of managerial knowledge that was transferred to China before 1949 and the social network linkages between authors, translators, academics, publishers, managers and government officials who comprised the 'community of management intellectuals' in China at the time.

Future Research

A recently begun project using a British Academy Research Development Award (2010-12, £102,000) continues past research into human welfare in China, pushing back into the early Qing period. This research is based on data in the Qing criminal process files. These will be used to compile region-specific height times series for the 17-19th centuries, which will be combined in a panel with new factor price data (wages, rents and commodity prices). The panel will allow estimation of long-run change in the standard of living in Qing China and the effect of economic and environmental shocks on human welfare.

School of Contemporary Chinese Studies

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Jubilee Campus
Nottingham, NG8 1BB

telephone: 44 (0) 115 846 6322
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email: chinese.studies@nottingham.ac.uk