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α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count
Businesses are often involved in climate change governance and form networks to influence policy. They are evidently important for the implementation of market-based emission trading schemes and their general role has been widely discussed. However, there is a variety of business networks, and their specific structures and organizing styles are poorly understood, particularly in the non-Western context. This study identifies the ways in which one of these networks was organized and performed a governing function in the development of an emission trading scheme in China. We found that the policy development was neither highly top-down nor bottom-up, and business participation was hierarchical. Key governing roles were effectively performed by a small group of collaborating business organizations, which were essentially public-private hybrid actors and able to build linkages between the top and the bottom levels. The findings indicate the decisive qualitative differences in business leadership in the development of market-based policy.