二次创业

Yan Yuliang Oct 15, 2013:

FYI http://wiki.mbalib.com/wiki/二次创业

I guess this should be able to help. It definitely means that an enterprise moves on to a higher stage of development

reesecc (X) Oct 15, 2013:

Agreement overall I asked my Native Chinese speaking wife to look at this and she quickly agreed that it was a big business or successful business starting up a second venture. I was not familiar with this term in English until now (learn something everyday) but it seems that your proposed use of it would be appropriate in line everyone's suggestions here.

Preston Decker (asker) Oct 14, 2013:

Thanks everyone for the thoughts and discussion. Phil, glad to see you liked 二次创业”不是可以随便定义的。随便定义的、到处可见的“二次创业”的口号，只是一个名词。作为概念，“二次创业”有着深刻的、丰富的、科学的内涵。" as well. I found that last night too- couldn't help laughing, the thing that popped into my mind last night when I saw that line was Laozi's "道可道非常道，名可名非常名“.Perhaps if I was just a little more punchy from lack of sleep I'd really go for broke and translate this as some variation of 'tao', am sure this would wake the proofreader up at the very least!

Sharon Toh, MITI MCIL Oct 14, 2013:

I agree with Phil and Sharon Lim Just to add on: We often have to coin our own terms for Chinese concepts. Sometimes, however, companies already have set translation for certain terms. For example, CNOOC's 二次跨越 strategy has to be called the Second Leap, whether you like it or not. So whenever 二次跨越 appears, I have to play around with 'Second Leap'. Sometimes I say 'make the Second Leap', and sometimes another way of phrasing, just to make the sentence flow nicely with the 'Second Leap'. And this Second Leap of theirs is not really that different from 二次创业, so to speak.

MY Lim Oct 14, 2013:

二次创业 seems to be a term used by Chen Shiqing in the book 经济领域的哥白尼革命. (<a>bit.ly/1em0HK9</a>). I agree with Phil that there is no neat equivalent for this term in English. Even reputable publishers/ institutions use their own translations, as evidenced below:
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<a>http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/121/1/Sanjiu-Shougang.pdf</a>: In the mid-1990s, Sanjiu began the policy of “Second Enterprise Establishment” (erci chuangye)…. (Published in the Cambridge Journal of Economics)
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<a> bit.ly/16I9DIg </a> : In the early 1990s, for example, managers at Stone began discussing how they had reached a new stage of development, “the second breakthrough” (er ci chuang ye). –Pg 60-61, Digital Dragon: High-technology Enterprises in China (Cornell Studies in Political Economy)
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<a>http://bit.ly/192Fd2Y</a> :References- Bao Yongjiang (2000) Chengjiaoxing xiangzheng qije de erci chuangye (The secondary launch of the suburban-type township enterprises)–Page 225, Developmental Dilemmas: Land Reform and Institutional Change in China (Routledge)
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Likewise, perhaps you could coin your own term and put "erci chuangye" in brackets.

Phil Hand Oct 14, 2013:

Could business jargon possibly be a big steaming.. Ran out of characters in my title there. Probably for the best. I think you shouldn't be looking for a "correct" answer. You quite often find that words like this - slogan type businessy words - don't map across perfectly to English terms, even if they started out life as translations of English terms. And I don't think any of these terms are particularly strictly defined, in English or Chinese. That Wiki page gives three separate terms for CE, and I can think of a couple more (and they're all just fancy names for "innovation"). And the Baidu page for 二次创业 is hilarious: "二次创业”不是可以随便定义的。随便定义的、到处可见的“二次创业”的口号，只是一个名词。作为概念，“二次创业”有着深刻的、丰富的、科学的内涵。" Yeah, cheers.
Thus, my advice would be to think about a few options. 1) You don't have to have a single term that works for every use of 二次创业. There are whole concept webs to choose from: disruption, innovation, blue skies... 2) You could make up a sparkly new term: secondary entrepreneurship, re-entrepreneurship, internal venturing. 3) Pick a term and make do, because it's all meaningless you have reached your character limit