Comparing the attitudes toward money, material possessions and savings of overseas Chinese vis-à-vis Chinese in China: convergence, divergence or cross-vergence, vis-à-vis ‘one size fits all’ human resource management policies and practices

Abstract

Data on attitudes toward money, material possessions and savings were collected from 692 respondents in Australia, Canada and China in 2008. On the basis of ethnicity, the sample was divided into five sub-groups: Caucasians in Australia; Chinese in Australia; Caucasians in Canada; Chinese in Canada; and Chinese in China. Results of bivariate and multivariate analyses of variance revealed that the savings rate and attitudes toward money/material possessions of Chinese who were born and raised in Australia and Canada were more similar to their counterparts in China than to the Caucasians in Australia and Canada. This finding shows convergence on the basis of ethnicity, thus suggesting that intra-national diversity can be as salient as cross-national differences and highlights the need to examine the effectiveness of ‘one size fits all’ human resource management policies and practices within a domestic context.

Keywords:

• Australia
• Canada
• China
• cross-national
• HRM
• money
• possessions
• savings

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to acknowledge the valuable contribution of Dr Hamin of Macquarie University to the statistical analysis. An earlier version of this study was presented at the AIB 2009 Annual Meeting in San Diego, California, USA, 27–30 June, 2009.