Made in China: What Western Managers Can Learn from Trailblazing Chinese Entrepreneurs.

Made in China: What Western Managers Can Learn from Trail-blazing Chinese Entrepreneurs. By Donald Sull, with Yong Wang. Harvard Business School Press, 231 pages. $35.

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Hearing some of the business laments coming out of China brings to mind the country's Great Wall: the barriers are very high, and it's virtually impossible to get around, meaning that companies have to deal closely with people on the ground there, including a fast-growing entrepreneurial class.

In this well-researched book, author Donald Sull--a professor at the London School of Economics--profiles eight entrepreneurs who are making waves in China and may be poised for wider attention on the world stage. He notes that China's relatively recent push into capitalism has produced an entrepreneurial fervor that "recalls the bare-knuckled capitalism of the Industrial Revolution in the United States." He adds, however, that while "China is a huge and growing market that few companies can ignore, it has also proven a devilishly difficult place to make money," even for U.S. giants like Microsoft and Wal-Mart.

Entrepreneurs, he suggests, can be the necessary lubricant, pointing to the success of French food group Danone, which formed a series of partnerships with leading entrepreneurs in China, especially the Hangzhou Wahaha Group, China's top bottled water maker. Danone's ability to reach local consumers through these partnerships helped it book more than $1 billion in revenue from China in 2003.

Profiles of companies like Internet portal Sina, computer maker Lenovo and home appliance firm Haier are interspersed with lessons that each of their leaders offers to outside entrants. Rich in detail, Made in China is a valuable addition to the growing list of resources on doing business in the world's largest market.