過去一般認為二十世紀初，西方大型企業挾新興科技、充裕資金，及中國政府所給予的優惠關稅等多項優勢來華設立子公司，因此中國民族資本企業鮮有有能力與之競爭者。但近來越來越多的研究成果顯示，我們對民族資本企業的活力與靈活性有低估之虞。高家龍 (Sherman Cochran) 早期有關煙草工業的研究結果，即顯示簡照南的南洋兄弟煙草公司一度與英美煙公司互較長短；他最近對申新紡織企業與大中華火柴公司的個案研究，更進一步顯示榮宗敬與劉鴻生在企業擴張過程中，靈活運用西式的管理科層與中國的傳統社會網絡。陳計堯對劉鴻生企業的整體研究也指出，劉氏在利用複式簿記與公司法方面的主動與活力。 申新紡織與大中華火柴的主要市場均在中國，其對手固然包含英商、日商及瑞典企業，但主要合縱連橫的對象實為華商。本文提供一個以歐洲為銷售市場、歐美跨國公司為主要對手的案例，進一步指出：民族資本企業的活力不僅在於一度與外籍企業分庭抗禮，還表現在充分利用本身的地利、人和等優勢，迫使外籍企業接納其為集團中的一員，進而在該工業中取得舉足輕重的地位。從華商茂昌公司與英商和記洋行的競爭，乃至壟斷性組織「中國冰蛋業同業公會」及「韋爾信託公司」的成立，可以看出民族資本企業如何利用江浙一帶充裕的資金，加上西方的技術、人才及經營方法，突破外籍企業的圍堵，再不斷地藉合縱連橫，成功地引導中國冷藏食品工業的發展與走向。 本文藉分析兩次世界大戰之間中國的冷凍蛋品工業，不僅顯示民族資本企業在競爭過程中所展現的主動、積極與高度靈活性，與歐美大型企業相較，有過之而無不及，同時進一步闡明歐美跨國公司與民族資本企業之間定義的模糊性。在本案例，兩者不僅不是涇渭分明，而且在產品的收購、製造、運輸及銷售的方法上幾無二致，在兼併或聯合壟斷方面更充滿彈性。高家龍在分析在華企業經營方式時，曾用「動態性的互動」一詞形容西式管理科層與中國傳統社會網絡之間的關係，如果借用高家龍的用詞，本案例中的跨國公司與民族資本企業之間那種充滿變數、你退我進的競合關係，無疑也是一種「動態性的互動」。

In the past it was commonly thought that Chinese indigenous businesses in the first half of the twentieth century, without the advantages of new technologies, ample capital and special tax treatment enjoyed by foreign enterprises, could hardly compete with Western intruders. Recent studies, however, have highlighted that we under-estimated the vitality of Chinese businesses. For example, Sherman Cochran’s 1980 work on the cigarette industry has clearly showed that Jian Zhaonan’s Nanyang Brothers Tobacco Company rivaled the British and American Tobacco Company. His most recent case studies from 2000 on two more Chinese businesses, the Shenxin Cotton Mills and the China Match Company, further reveal their adaptability to Western management styles by combining “Western” managerial hierarchies with “Chinese” social networks. Kai Yiu Chan’s study of the match industry in China also shows that the China Match Company, in expanding its business, was quick to take advantage of double-entry bookkeeping and the then newly promulgated company law. The Shenxin Cotton Mills and the China Match Company distributed their products mainly in China, and their competitors, though including some British, Japanese and Swedish companies, were largely Chinese firms. This paper is a case study of a refrigerated egg packing industry dominated by one single Chinese business, the China Egg Produce Company (CEPC). Its products were sold exclusively to Europe in competition with some six to eight British and American enterprises, among them the International Export Company (IEC), the China subsidiary of a British multinational company. By focusing on the refrigerated egg packing industry in China during the inter-war period, this paper argues that Chinese merchants were quick to grasp Western technology, management and the factory system. This, plus their knowledge of the people and the land, put them in a better position than we have recognized so far. This paper shows that CEPC not only rivaled IEC, but persuaded refrigerating companies, foreign and Chinese, to form the Refrigerated Egg Packers’ Association of China in Shanghai in 1930 and the Weal Trust Co. Ltd. in London in 1934. Through these price-fixing organizations, the refrigeration companies managed to monopolize the export of frozen egg products from China to Europe until the outbreak of the Pacific War, and China therefore contributed 90 percent of “eggs not in shells” imported into the UK in the 1930s. The CEPC case not only shows the surprising vitality and adaptability of some Chinese businesses, but suggests that we reconsider the definition of indigenous enterprise (minzu ziben qiye). Though purely owned by Chinese merchants in China, CEPC operated exactly like its Western rivals in every aspect of its operations, including egg purchasing, processing, transporting and selling. On the other hand, multinationals also showed self-restraint and flexibility in their competition with Chinese business, operating on the principle, “if you can’t beat them, join them.” Cochran describes the interaction between the managerial hierarchies and social networks in the management of Western, Japanese and Chinese enterprises in China, as “dynamic.” If we can borrow Cochran’s term, the fierce competition and the subsequent close cooperation between CEPC and IEC discussed in this case study could be termed undeniably another kind of “dynamic interaction.”