Marketing death: culture and the making of a life insurance market in China

303 Pages·2012·2.679 MB·English

by  Chan, Cheris Shun-ching

Marketing Death
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MARKETING DEATH
Culture and the Making of a Life
Insurance Market in China
CHERIS SHUN-CHING CHAN
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Copyright © 2012 by Oxford University Press, Inc.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Chan, Cheris Shun-ching.
Marketing death : culture and the making of a life insurance market in China / Cheris Shun-ching Chan.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary: “Marketing Death is the fi rst book to off er a penetrating sociological analysis of the emergence of
a life insurance market outside of the Euro-American context. Drawing on rich ethnographic data, it documents
the processes and micro-politics through which local cultures shape the way a market is formed and, hence, sheds
light on the dynamics through which modern capitalist enterprises are diff used to regions with diff erent cultural
traditions.”—Publisher’s description.
ISBN 978-0-19-539407-8 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Life insurance—Social aspects—China. I. Title.
HG9169.C48 2011
368.3200951—dc23 2011018554
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
To my mother
Cheng Suet King
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Illustrations xv
Introduction 3
1. Is China an Inviting Place for Life Insurance?
Societal Conditions, the Market, and Remaining Puzzles 19
2. Defi ning Life Insurance and Product Development :
Divergent Institutional Logics 51
3. Manufacturing Sales Agents : Cultural Capital
and Management Strategies 76
4. M aking Transactions : Selling Strategies and Sales Discourses 115
5. Buying Life Insurance : Multiple Motives but Consistent Preferences 143
6. H ow Culture Matters : Culture, Market, and Globalization 169
Appendix A : Methods 1 95
Appendix B : Life Insurance Companies in China: 2009 2 27
Notes 231
Glossary 2 45
Bibliography 2 47
Index 267
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Acknowledgments
MY RESEARCH INTERESTS have long been surprising to friends and colleagues
alike. When friends and colleagues outside the circle of sociology fi rst heard that
my area of research was insurance, their common response was, “What has sociol-
ogy got to do with insurance?” And when sociology colleagues learned that my
earlier work was on religion, they were also quite surprised by the disjunctive shift
in my research areas. Fortunately, it did not require much eff ort to convince my
colleagues of the connection between my earlier work and my current project; all
it took was a brief elaboration on my theoretical interest in the role of culture in
making a life insurance market. Th e idea of researching the emergence of life
insurance in China was fi rst inspired by Arjun Appadurai, who probably did not
imagine that his 15-minute meeting with me would propel me into this project
for 10 years now. In our conversations about culture and modernity, Appadurai
found the commensuration of the value of human life to a probabilistic calcula-
tion of risks sociologically intriguing. Although the ultimate outcome of my
project is not entirely about the commensurate logic of life insurance and moder-
nity, I thank him for his stimulating conversation that triggered this project in
the fi rst place.
My deepest gratitude goes to my informants that, unfortunately, I cannot
name individually here. Th ey include the sales agents, in-house managers and
assistants, and life insurance clients and prospects. I am especially grateful to the
sales agents, who shared their invaluable time with me when they could have been
prospecting clients and for their unreserved openness to me and trust in my
research. I warmly thank those friends who connected me to the fi eld. Cao Yang,
Chen Xiangming, Fan Lizhu, James Farrer, He Min, Jane Hu, Hu Jun, Charlie
Lu, Tracy Shu, Sun Han, Sun Jiaming, Sun Jiwei, Tang Nie, To Yushan, Wang
Jiangguo, Wang Lihua, Calvin Wong, Wu Yuxiao, Terry Xu, George Yang, Yap
Chong Huat, Terence Yip, Yu Hai, Yu Zhiyuan, Zhang Ji, and Zhao Dingxin all
connected me to my informants in China. My fi eld research would have been
impossible without their help. In particular, I would like to acknowledge Zhiyuan’s