Although the government encourages Chinese returnees to start businesses or cooperate with private enterprises, most choose to stay in State-run institutions, which are financially supported by the government.

The first annual report on Chinese Returnee Entrepreneurship 2012, published by Social Sciences Academic Press, was released on July 23. According to the report, more than half of Chinese overseas talents came back to work in State-run institutions and only 12 percent operated their own businesses.

The report is based on 499 questionnaires and covers Chinese returnees aged from 20 to 50. Most interviewees returned from North America and Europe. In 2011, the number of Chinese returnees hit 186,200, a 38 percent increase over the previous year.

Beijing and Guangdong and Jiangsu provinces rank the top three choices of working places for the returnees.

The reason many interviewees gave for returning from abroad was interpersonal relationships. About half said they came back because of family relation. And to be with family and friends ranks their top goal in coming back.

Eighty percent of returnees thought social and cultural gaps were their top problem abroad and complicated interpersonal relationships in China the hardest problem to solve.

"The result is surely marked by Chinese characteristics," said Yi Min, president of Novartis China, a Swiss drug maker. Yi had spent years studying in United Kingdom and the United States says that culture shock is the common problem of Chinese returnees.

He said that such differences could be found everywhere in life and people's mindset. "The point is that the returnees should play a leading role of making a positive change to the Chinese society rather than complaining about culture shock," he said.

The report noted that the number of young, Chinese overseas students has been increasing in recent years. Wang Yaohui, director of Center for China and Globalization and the report's writer, said those young returnees would be the next focus.