Neither Inevitable Nor Necessary: The Eventful Financialization of China's Education and Training Industry

What do r and K strategies mean in organizational science? This paper starts by introducing the original biological r-K theory and its application in organizational science by Brittain and Freeman (1980). Despite the insights of their theory, it has important limitations in its narrowed understanding of opportunism. I propose a new version of r-K theory by drawing on the case of China’s education and training industry. With rich and detailed interview and archival data, I argue that the ideal-typical r-strategy of economic organizations, as opportunistic behaviors, entails exploitative market practices with little regard for product/service quality, environmental constraints or long-term goals. Such a strategy has adaptability and tends to become the dominant form in an environment where there is resource munificence, high volatility and consumers with low quality-consciousness. Conversely, the ideal-typical K-strategy includes practices with high consideration for product/service quality, environmental constraints and long-term goals. Such strategy has greater adaptability and tends to become the dominant form in an environment where there is resource scarcity, low volatility and consumers with high quality-consciousness. The succession of the two forms is indeed primarily a selection process, but existing r-strategists can adapt to become K-strategists under certain circumstances, even though the succession of forms involves substantial adaptation. My new theory has adequate explanatory power in explaining a series of changes in China’s education and training industry. I conclude by discussing the implications of my theoretical claims and empirical findings.