Does the Colour of the Cat Matter? The Red Hat Strategy in China's Private Enterprises
研究中国私营企业为何采用红帽子策略（注册为公有以掩盖私有性质），发现早期市场转型中制度环境、交易成本和社会嵌入性促使企业选择模糊产权，而制度改善后企业转向清晰产权。
The proliferation of new property rights regimes in transitional economies provided an opportunity to examine the interaction between institutions and organizations. Some private enterprises in China developed the Red Hat strategy whereby they disguised their private ownership by registering as a public-owned organization. Drawing on a national survey, this study investigated how institutional variations, transaction costs and social embeddedness affected the firms’ Red Hat strategy. The findings suggest that private firms preferred a fuzzy property rights arrangement in the early years of market transition. The temporal and regional variation of the institutional environment contributed to the adoption of the Red Hat strategy. High transaction costs — networking cost and resource constraints — were positively related to the adoption of the Red Hat strategy. Social embeddedness also played an important role. The reliance on transaction partners in the public sector increased the pressure to adopt the Red Hat, while connections with high-ranking cadres facilitated the process. However, private firms opted for clearly delineated property rights as the institutional environment improved. In turn, the decisions of individual firms affected the institutional environment at the aggregate level. The Red Hat strategy exemplifies the co-evolution of institutional change and organizational dynamics.