In search of Confucian HRM: theory and practice in Greater China and beyond

Abstract

This contribution is part of a wider Symposium on people management in the heartland of Asia. It sets out in search of what might be conceptualized as ‘Confucian human resource management (HRM)’, in Greater China and beyond. It will cover not only the People's Republic of China (PRC) but also the Overseas Chinese (Nanyang) Diaspora, namely in Hong Kong and Taiwan, among other places. It will seek to understand how far traditional Chinese values still continue to influence the degree to which HRM has been adopted. The main conclusion we come to is that the continuity of traditional Chinese values is empirically still observable in the contemporary practice of people management but with varying degrees of emphasis.

Keywords:

• Confucianism
• culture
• globalization
• Greater China
• harmonious society
• human resource management
• HRM
• People's Republic of China
• PRC
• values

Acknowledgements

I should like to thank the following colleagues and collaborators for their advice and help in the development of the ideas in this essay: Syed Akhtar, John Child, Ngan Collins, Daniel Z. Ding, Vince Edwards, Keith Goodall, Grace Lee, Sek-Hong Ng, Jane Nolan, Peter Nolan, Riccardo Peccei, Michael Poole, Chris Rowley, Shuming Zhao, Ying Zhu, Zhong-Ming Wang and many others. I must also thank Penny Smith at the Cardiff Business School for her most helpful administrative assistance.

Notes

 1. Greater China usually refers to mainland China, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and Singapore. The Overseas Chinese may be found in a worldwide Diaspora in many parts of East and South-East Asia, North America and so on (see Warner 2003a).

 2. Confucius was according to Chinese tradition, the founder of the Ru School of Chinese thought. His teachings are to be found in the Lunyu or Analects, which deal with the' ideal' individual and how he/she should interact with others as well as relate to the forms of society and government around them. For further detail on the contemporary upsurge in interest in Confucianism in today's PRC, see Bell's recent book on the topic (2008).

 3. Laozi is associated with Daoist thought which may be seen as essentially philosophical and or religious in nature, although followers may have been unconcerned with these labels. The Dao is a literally a ‘Road’, sometimes known as the ‘Way’.

 4. Wu-wei is hard to define, perhaps best seen as ‘natural ‘or ‘effortless’ action and through wu-wei humans can ultimately find immortality. All this, however, is at a higher level than the pursuit of laissez-faire in its economic and political context (see Gerlach 2005).

 5. Lamond and Zheng (2010) also studied the writings of Guanzi, Hanfeizi, Xunzi and Yanzi in their search for principles of management and HRM which might be of use to the contemporary reader.

 6. This observation relates to the tag ‘with Chinese characteristics’ which as been attached to a wide range of Chinese management since 1979 (see Barney and Zhang 2009; Child 2009; Tsui 2009).

 7. Trescott (2007, p. 26) suggests that Confucianism could be used to justify both the status quo or going further, active government intervention.

 8. This ‘safety-valve’ approach has alternatively been labelled ‘Consultative Leninism’ and described as the ‘rule by law’ rather than the rule of law (Tsang 2009, p. 865ff).

 9. The World Bank forecast was 9.5% growth for 2010 (cited in China Daily, 17 March 2010; People's Daily 2010; World Bank 2010). Against this positive ‘light’ side, the yang of the Daoist duality, we find the ‘dark’ side, the yin of high social costs incurred by the Chinese working-class in the allegedly poor working conditions in the factories producing the low-cost exports to Western markets, as described in numerous accounts. The high rate of recently publicized workplace suicides among young workers in Shenzen has been cited as an consequence of the latter phenomenon, according to critics of such relentless industrialization, as has been the recent apparent up-surge of strike action (see CLB 2010).

10. See Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist, Yasheng Huang's (2010) observations; he has written extensively on the debate between the ‘Beijing Consensus’ and the ‘Washington Consensus’.

11. See the work of Stephen Morgan, a sinologist/business historian, formerly at the University of Melbourne, now at Nottingham, on the emergence of Chinese management in the twentieth century which has been very influential on the line of thinking of this essay. For further publications by this author, see Morgan (2003).

12. On the role of paternalism in firms in Greater China, see Yao (2002) as well as Redding and Witt (2007).

13. A national examination occurs each year for university entrance in China, a major and nerve-wracking event for many; over 9.5 million examinees sat it in 2009. It is called the National College Entrance Examination (gaokao). Based on the current education system in China, the results of the two-day exam very much determines the future of any ambitious student in China. The score achieved in the exam will decide whether you can enter higher education and whether in a top university.

14. Others may see them as more fluid (see Lin and Ho 2009, p. 2411) with Confucianism having possibly weakened in both mainland China and Hong Kong but for different reasons, in the former because of Communism and in the latter because of Westernization.

15. For further details on this point, see the discussion in Goodall et al. (2007).

16. On the question of who is on the one hand, ‘red’ or on the other, ‘expert’, see Schurman (1966) one of the best studies of the emergence of post-1949 management available.

17. In addition, one should add to this the number of local and provincial government officials, state officials and others, the total amounting to over 100 million. Among other parts of the economy, the public sectors are still key ones in China. These consist of government departments, Party departments, state-owned non-profit units and government-led social associations, among others (see Yu 2006).

18. See the other 11 papers presented in this Symposium, as well as those in the previous Special Issue (Warner 2009).

19. According to Zheng and Lamond (2009) writing on the contemporary relevance of ancient Chinese writings on management, Huang Rujin, a professor from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, ‘has recently proposed a he-he … model (the first ‘he’ here means ‘harmony’, the second ‘he’ means ‘unity’), or the direct translation to ‘a harmoniously unifying management model’. Huang's (2008) proposed model is based on the ancient Chinese philosophers’ thinking that emphasizes benevolence, harmony and unity to help ruling the state’.

20. Huang (2010) questions whether there is a unique Chinese model of development and by implication, management.