The ‘third way’: the future of work and organization in a ‘corporatized’ Chinese economy

Abstract

China's economy has undergone a rapid transformation since liberalization was first introduced in 1979. Not only has there been rapid economic growth, but ownership sources have changed fundamentally, with a relative decline of the state-owned sector (SOE), a large foreign-owned sector (FIE), private enterprise and hybrid public/private forms.

Accompanying these profound changes, there has been a marked shift in people management processes from centrally planned personnel administration to new forms. This article reviews the extent of those changes through a review of eight studies of HRM in China by the authors and their project colleagues.

It concludes that there are widespread variations in the pace of change, between ownership forms in particular, but also between localities. Specifically, SOEs have been slower to implement reform than FIEs, largely due to historical legacies, organizational inertia and continued government interference.

Keywords:

• HRM change
• ownership form
• Chinese management

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge funding from the UK's Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) for the research project ‘Post-Deng Economic Reform’ (ROOO222510), which forms a part of the research reported upon in this paper. We should like to thank our Chinese colleagues Professor Cheng Chien Zicheng, of the University of Science and Technology Beijing, and Xiao Yuxin of Sunderland University. We would also like to thank the various researchers who have assisted us with data collection, notably Lili Ke, Ying Shen, Qian Yang, Qiong Wu, Xin Xu, Jing Zhang and Hong Zhang.

Notes

John Hassard, Professor of Organisational Behaviour, School of Management, UMIST, Manchester, UK (E-mail: [email protected]). Jonathan Morris, Professor of Organisational Analysis, Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, Wales, UK (E-mail: [email protected]). Jackie Sheehan, Senior Lecturer in History and Associate Director at the Institute of Contemporary China, Nottingham University (E-mail: [email protected]).