William C. Kirby

William C. Kirby

T. M. Chang Professor of China Studies
Spangler Family Professor of Business Administration

T. M. Chang Professor of China Studies
Spangler Family Professor of Business Administration

William C. Kirby is T. M. Chang Professor of China Studies at Harvard University and Spangler Family Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. He is a Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor. He serves as Chairman of the Harvard China Fund, the University's academic venture fund for China, and Faculty Chair of the Harvard Center Shanghai, Harvard's first University-wide center located outside the United States. A historian of modern China, Kirby's work examines contemporary China's business, economic, and political development in an international context. He writes and teaches on the growth of modern companies in China (Chinese and foreign; state-owned and private); Chinese corporate law and company structure; business relations across Greater China (PRC, Taiwan, Hong Kong); and China's relations with the United States and Europe. 

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William C. Kirby
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Featured Work Publications Research Summary Awards & Honors
Overview
A historian by training, Professor Kirby examines contemporary China's business, economic, and political development in an international context. He writes and teaches on the growth of modern companies in China (Chinese and foreign; state-owned and private); Chinese corporate law and company structure; business relations across Greater China (PRC, Taiwan, Hong Kong); and China's relations with the United States and Europe. He has authored or co-authored more than fifty HBS cases on business in China, ranging from start-ups to SOEs; agribusiness and middle-class consumption; banking and microfinance; healthcare and education; corporate governance and corporate social responsibility; and the global strategies of Chinese firms. His current projects include case studies of trend-setting Chinese businesses and a comparative study of higher education in China, Europe, and the United States. His most recent book is Can China Lead? (Harvard Business Review Press).
Keywords: China; Internationalization; Educational Policy And Politics; Infrastructure; Government And Business; The Revival Of Family Business In China; China’s Infrastructure Exports: The ‘Belt And Road’ Initiative; Agribusiness; Education; Entrepreneurship; Globalization; Governance; Government and Politics; History; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Social Enterprise; Auto Industry; Education Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Health Industry; Semiconductor Industry; Asia; Europe; North and Central America
Current Research

Doing business in China in the early 21st century

Chinese companies and consumer markets

Chinese Universities: Leaders of the 21st Century? 

The enduring role of State-Owned Enterprises in China 

Business, political, and cultural relations across the Taiwan Strait

William C. Kirby is T. M. Chang Professor of China Studies at Harvard University and Spangler Family Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. He is a Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor. He serves as Chairman of the Harvard China Fund, the University's academic venture fund for China, and Faculty Chair of the Harvard Center Shanghai, Harvard's first University-wide center located outside the United States.

A historian of modern China, Kirby's work examines contemporary China's business, economic, and political development in an international context. He writes and teaches on the growth of modern companies in China (Chinese and foreign; state-owned and private); Chinese corporate law and company structure; business relations across Greater China (PRC, Taiwan, Hong Kong); and China's relations with the United States and Europe. He has authored or co-authored more than fifty HBS cases on business in China, ranging from start-ups to SOEs; agribusiness and middle-class consumption; banking and microfinance; healthcare and education; corporate governance and corporate social responsibility; and the global strategies of Chinese firms. His current projects include case studies of trend-setting Chinese businesses and a comparative study of higher education in China, Europe, and the United States. His most recent books include Can China Lead? (Harvard Business Review Press) and China and Europe on the New Silk Road (Oxford University Press).

Before coming to Harvard in 1992, he was professor of history, director of Asian studies, and dean of University College at Washington University in St. Louis. At Harvard, he has served as chair of the history department, director of the Harvard University Asia Center, and director of the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies. As dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences., he led Harvard's largest school, with 10,000 students, 1,000 faculty members, 2,500 staff, and an annual budget of $1 billion.

Professor Kirby's research and consulting have focused on strategies for business and education in China. In addition to the American Council of Learned Societies, he serves on the Board of Directors of Cabot Corporation; The China Fund, Inc.; The Taiwan Fund, Inc.; Harvard University Press; and Schwarzman Scholars at Tsinghua University. He served as senior advisor on China to Duke University in the founding of Duke Kunshan University.

Kirby holds degrees from Dartmouth College, Harvard University, the Freie Universität Berlin (Dr. Phil. honoris causa), the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (Dr. Phil. honoris causa), and Hong Kong Baptist University (Dr. Humanities honoris causa). He has been named Honorary Professor at Peking University, Nanjing University, Fudan University, Zhejiang University, Chongqing University, East China Normal University, the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, and National Chengchi University. He has also held appointments as visiting professor at University of Heidelberg and the Free University of Berlin. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Featured Work
Empires of Ideas
Creating the Modern University from Germany to America to China
The modern university was born in Germany. In the twentieth century, the United States leapfrogged Germany to become the global leader in higher education. Will China challenge its position in the twenty-first?


On Academic Engagement with China

The Wire China: China's educational resurgence is much less a threat than an opportunity for American and other international universities.

Zeroing out on zero-COVID
June 2022 Science.org Editorial: "There is no such thing as 'zero-COVID.' As the Omicron variant spreads to China’s capital city, Beijing, the question is not if, but when and how, China will begin to 'live with COVID-19'..."
Books
Journal Articles
Book Chapters
  • Kirby, William C. "Introduction: International Innovation & American Challenges." Special Issue on Advances & Challenges in International Higher Education edited by Wendy Fischman, Howard Gardner & William C. Kirby. Daedalus 153, no. 2 (Spring 2024): 7–20. View Details
  • Kirby, William C. "The Merits and Limits of China's Modern Universities." Chap. 11 in Making Meritocracy: Lessons from China and India, from Antiquity to the Present, edited by Tarun Khanna and Michael Szonyi, 262–283. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2022. View Details
  • Kirby, William C., Marijk C. van der Wende, Nian Cai Liu, and Simon Marginson. "Introduction: China's Rise and the New Silk Road in Global Context." Chap. Intro of China and Europe on the New Silk Road: Connecting Universities Across Eurasia, edited by Marijk C. van der Wende, William C. Kirby, Nian Cai Liu, and Simon Marginson, 1–17. Oxford University Press, 2020. View Details
  • Kirby, William C. "The International Origins and Global Aspirations of Chinese Universities: Along the New Silk Road." Chap. 1 in China and Europe on the New Silk Road: Connecting Universities Across Eurasia, edited by Marijk C. van der Wende, William C. Kirby, Nian Cai Liu, and Simon Marginson, 18–32. Oxford University Press, 2020. View Details
  • Kirby, William C. "Why Do So Many Chinese Students Come to the United States?" Chap. 27 in The China Questions: Critical Insights into a Rising Power, edited by Jennifer Rudolph and Michael Szonyi, 219–230. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018. View Details
  • Kirby, William C., and Marijk C. van der Wende. "A Global Dialogue on Liberal Arts and Sciences: Re-engagement, Re-imagination, and Experimentation." Chap. 1 in Experiences in Liberal Arts and Science Education from America, Europe, and Asia: A Dialogue Across Continents, edited by William C. Kirby and Marijk C. van der Wende, 1–16. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. View Details
  • Kirby, William C. "China Stands Up: The Wartime Foundations of China's Emergence as a Great Power." In Zhan zheng de li shi yu ji yi [War in History and Memory], edited by Fangshang Lü, 202–221. Taipei, Taiwan: Guo shi guan [Academia Historica], 2015. View Details
  • Kirby, William C. "Global Business Across the Taiwan Strait: The Case of the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited." In Mobile Horizons: Dynamics Across the Taiwan Strait, edited by Wen-hsin Yeh, 178–208. Berkeley: University of California, Berkeley, Institute of East Asian Studies, 2013. View Details
  • Kirby, William C. "Engineers and the State in Modern China." In Prospects for the Professions in China, edited by William P. Alford, William Kirby, and Kenneth Winston, 283–314. Routledge Studies on Civil Society in Asia. London: Routledge, 2010. View Details
  • Kirby, William C. "China's Republican Century: Leaders and Followers on the Mainland and on Taiwan, 1911-2007." In Lun Minguo shiqi lingdao qingying [Leadership Elites in Republican China], edited by Lu Fang-shang, 22–32. Hong Kong: Commercial Press, 2009. (ISBN: 978-962-07-6426-4.) View Details
  • Kirby, William C. "Archives and Histories in Twentieth-Century China." In Archives, Documentation and Institutions of Socal Memory, edited by Francis X. Blouin Jr. and William G. Rosenberg. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006. View Details
  • Kirby, William C. "When Did China Become China? Thoughts on the Twentieth Century." In The Teleology of the Modern Nation-State, edited by Joshua A. Fogel, 105–114. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005. View Details
  • Kirby, William C. "Introduction." Introduction to Realms of Freedom in Modern China. Vol. 15, edited by William C. Kirby, 1–17. Making of Modern Freedom. Stanford University Press, 2004. View Details
  • Kirby, William C. "The Chinese Party-State under Democracy and Dictatorship on the Mainland and Taiwan." In Realms of Freedom in Modern China. Vol. 15, edited by William C. Kirby, 113–138. Making of Modern Freedom. Stanford University Press, 2004. View Details
  • Kirby, William C. "Images and Realities of Chinese Fascism." In Fascism Outside Europe: The European Impulse Against Domestic Conditions In The Diffusion Of Global Fascism, edited by Stein Ugelvik Larsen, 233–268. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001. View Details
  • Kirby, William C. "The Two Chinas in the Global Setting: Sino-Soviet and Sino-American Cooperation in the 1950s." In Re-examining the Cold War: U.S. China Diplomacy, 1954-1973, edited by Robert Ross, 25–46. Cambridge: Harvard University, Asia Center, 2001. View Details
  • Kirby, William C. "The Nationalist Regime and the Chinese Party-State." In Historical Perspectives on Contemporary East Asia, edited by Merle Goldman and Andrew Gordon, 211–237. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000. View Details
  • Kirby, William C. "Engineering China: The Origins of the Chinese Developmental State." In Becoming Chinese, edited by Wen-hsin Yeh, 137–160. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. View Details
  • Kirby, William C. "Intercultural Connections and Chinese Development: External and Internal Spheres of Modern China's Foreign Relations." In China's Quest for Modernization: A Historical Perspective, edited by Frederic Wakeman and Wang Xi, 219–248. Berkeley: University of California, Berkeley, Institute of East Asian Studies, 1997. (published first in Zhongguo xiandaihua wenti [Issues of Chinese modernization] (Shanghai: Fudan daxue chubanshe, 1994)) View Details
  • Kirby, William C. "The Study of Modern China's Foreign Relations: Trends and Research Agendas." In Politik, Wirtschaft, Kulter: Studien zu den Deutsch-Chinesischen Beziehungen, edited by Mechthild Leutner, 385–406. Munster: Lit Verlag, 1996. View Details
  • Kirby, William C. "Chinese-American Relations in Comparative Perspective, 1900-1949." In Pacific Passage: The Study of American East-Asian Relations on the Eve of the Twenty-First Century, edited by Warren Cohen and Akira Iriye, 163–190. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996. View Details
  • Kirby, William C. "Traditions of Centrality, Authority and Management in Modern China's Foreign Relations." In Ideas and Interpretations in Chinese Foreign Policy, edited by David Shambaugh and Thomas Robinson, 13–30. New York and London: Oxford University Press, 1994. View Details
  • Kirby, William C. "Intercultural Contacts and International Relations: China's Relations with Germany, the Soviet Union and the United States, 1927-1944." In Deutschland und China, edited by Kuo Heng-yü and Mechthild Leutner, 225–252. Munich: Minerva Publikation, 1994. View Details
  • Kirby, William C. "The Chinese War Economy: Mobilization, Control, and Planning in Nationalist China." In China's Bitter Victory: The War With Japan, 1937-1945, edited by Steven I. Levine and James C. Hsiung, 185–213. New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1992. View Details
  • Kirby, William C. "Minguo shiqi Zhongwai jingji jishu hezuo: Meigo zhanshi shengchan quwentuan huan Hua, 1944-1946 [Sino-foreign Economic and Technical Cooporation in Republican China: The U.S. War Production Mission to China, 1944-46]." In Minguo dang'an yu minguo shi xueshu taolunhui lunwenji [Proceedings of the Conference on the Archives and History of Republican China], edited by Zhang Xianwen, et al.. Beijing: Dang'an chubanshe [Archives Press], 1989. View Details
  • Kirby, William C. "Technocratic Organization and Technological Development in China, 1928-1953." In Science and Technology in Post-Mao China, edited by Denis Fred Simon and Merle Goldman, 23–44. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989. View Details
Cases and Teaching Materials
Presentations
Other Publications and Materials
Research Summary
Overview
A historian by training, Professor Kirby examines contemporary China's business, economic, and political development in an international context. He writes and teaches on the growth of modern companies in China (Chinese and foreign; state-owned and private); Chinese corporate law and company structure; business relations across Greater China (PRC, Taiwan, Hong Kong); and China's relations with the United States and Europe. He has authored or co-authored more than fifty HBS cases on business in China, ranging from start-ups to SOEs; agribusiness and middle-class consumption; banking and microfinance; healthcare and education; corporate governance and corporate social responsibility; and the global strategies of Chinese firms. His current projects include case studies of trend-setting Chinese businesses and a comparative study of higher education in China, Europe, and the United States. His most recent book is Can China Lead? (Harvard Business Review Press).
Keywords: China; Internationalization; Educational Policy And Politics; Infrastructure; Government And Business; The Revival Of Family Business In China; China’s Infrastructure Exports: The ‘Belt And Road’ Initiative; Agribusiness; Education; Entrepreneurship; Globalization; Governance; Government and Politics; History; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Social Enterprise; Auto Industry; Education Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Health Industry; Semiconductor Industry; Asia; Europe; North and Central America
Current Research

Doing business in China in the early 21st century

Chinese companies and consumer markets

Chinese Universities: Leaders of the 21st Century? 

The enduring role of State-Owned Enterprises in China 

Business, political, and cultural relations across the Taiwan Strait

Awards & Honors
Awarded an Honorary Professorship by Zheijiang University in 2011.
Awarded an Honorary Professorship by East China Normal University in 2011.
Awarded an Honorary Professorship by National Chengchi University in 2011.
Awarded a Dr. Phil. Honoris Causa (Honorary Doctorate) by Hong Kong Polytechnic University in 2010.
Awarded an Honorary Professorship by Fudan University in 2008.
Awarded an Honorary Professorship by Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences in 2008.
Awarded an Honorary Professorship by Chongqing University in 2008.
Awarded a Dr. Phil. Honoris Causa (Honorary Doctorate) by the Freie Universität Berlin Fachbereich Geschichts- und Kulturwissenschaften in 2006.
Received a Distinguished Faculty Award from the Harvard Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations in 2006.
Elected as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2005.
Received a National Endowment for the Humanities Grant for 1994–1999.
Awarded an Honorary Professorship by Peking University in 1996.
Awarded an Honorary Professorship by Nanjing University in 1994.
Awarded a Fellowship in Chinese Studies from the American Council of Learned Societies for 1994–1995.
Received a grant from the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange for 1993–2000.
Received a Distinguished Faculty Award from Washington University in Saint Louis in 1991.
Received a Research Grant from the U.S. National Program for Advanced Study and Research in China for 1987.
Awarded a Fellowship in Chinese Studies from the American Council of Learned Societies for 1984–1985.
Received a National Endowment for the Humanities Grant for 1983.
Received a History of Science and Technology Grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for 1982.
Awarded a Whiting Fellowship in the Humanities for 1979–1980.
Awarded a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship for 1977–1978.
Received a Center for European Studies Research Grant from the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies for 1977.
Received a Harvard History Research Grant for Europe in 1976.
Awarded a National Defence Foreign Language Fellowship for 1975–1976.
Winner of a Harvard University Graduate Fellowship, 1973–1976.
Named a Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst Fellow at the Freie Universität Berlin for 1972–1973.
Member of Phi Beta Kappa, 1972.
Awarded an Honorary Professorship by Tsinghua University in 2016.
Awarded a Dr. Phil. Honoris Causa (Honorary Doctorate) by Hong Kong Baptist University in 2017.
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