Perdue School Faculty Meet Haier Group CEO for 'Shared Entrepreneurship' Discussion

SALISBURY, MD---Drs. Richard Hoffman, Olivier Roche and Frank Shipper of the Management and Marketing Department in Salisbury University’s Franklin P. Perdue School of Business recently were invited to meet with Zhang Ruimin, CEO of the Haier Group Corp., in Washington, D.C., to discuss the book Shared Entrepreneurship: a Path to Engaged Employee Ownership.

The book was co-authored by Shipper, Hoffman and Roche with other Perdue School faculty, including Dr. Christy Weer, Perdue School dean, and Drs. Stephen Adams, Marvin Brown Jr., Thomas Calo, Wayne Decker, Marc Street and Vera Street, along with Dr. Charles Manz of the University of Massachusetts and Karen Manz, independent researcher and writer.

Zhang praised the book, telling the Perdue School representatives he was impressed by the research reflecting over 25 years of focus on shared entrepreneurship. He developed Haier from a state-owned, money-losing regional appliance manufacturer after being asked to take over the company in 1984. By 2010, this China-based business had become the world’s largest appliance manufacturer.  It purchased General Electric’s appliance division in 2016 for $5.6 billion.

With some 70,000 employees, Zhang told the visiting SU faculty that Haier had been transformed into thousands of microenterprises overseen by in-house entrepreneurs — similar to the type of corporate governance described in Shared Entrepreneurship.

He also invited Shipper to keynote the Haier’s International Rendanheyi Model Forum, jointly organized with the Gary Hamel Management Laboratory, in Qingdao, China in September. Under the Rendanheyi Model, all employees have the opportunity to advance plans, become entrepreneurs and share in the company’s success, paralleling the book’s theme.

For more information call 410-543-6030 or visit the SU website at www.salisbury.edu.