Human resource management in China revisited: introduction

Abstract

This introduction attempts to provide an overview of the Special Issue of the IJHRM on ‘Human Resource Management in China Revisited’. It deals first with the economic background of the recent changes in the PRC from 1978 to the present day, exploring the change from a command economy to a more market-led one, as well as the demise of ‘iron rice bowl’ policy dominated by a model to Soviet-inspired personnel management in favour of one gradually being characterized by possibly Japanese-/Western-influenced human resource management (HRM), albeit with ‘Chinese characteristics’. It then introduces the main debates in the field before summing up, at some length, the empirical contributions based on ‘state of the art’ field research contained in the papers submitted. Last, it deals with the comparative setting of the contributions on China vis-à-vis the national HRM systems of Japan and South Korea.

Keywords:

• China (PRC)
• employee relations
• expatriates
• globalization
• human resource management (HRM)
• joint ventures (JV)
• personnel management (PM)
• performance
• state-owned enterprises (SOEs)
• Sino-foreign

Notes

Malcolm Warner, Wolfson College and Judge Institute of Management, University of Cambridge, UK ([email protected]).

1. The way change occurred in China has often been contrasted with the ‘big bang’ strategy that characterized transition in the former Soviet Union.

2. It is probably too early at the time of writing to estimate what the short-term impact of WTO entry has been on downsizing. In the period since China formally signed up for entry, the economic growth rate has been above the trend rate, possibly absorbing some surplus labour but not enough to make a significant dent in the ‘real’, as opposed to official, unemployment figure.

3. The ‘iron rice bowl’ not only has Soviet antecedents but may also have a lineage going back to the Japanese ‘golden rice bowl’ in Manchuria (see Warner, 1995).

4. The persistence of the life-time employment model may be a case of organizational as well as institutional inertia. After the 1986 Regulation on labour contracts, those who already had tenure were allowed to keep it. New entrants to the workforce had to be on fixed-term contracts.

5. This discussion of ‘de-institutionalization’ has a broader context vis-à-vis the transitional process experienced by formerly planned economies, mostly Communist in nature, now moving towards a market model (see Peng, 2000).

6. The term ‘with Chinese characteristics’ is used in official parlance by the PRC authorities, as well as by ‘China-watchers’. It normally means institutions or practices that are rooted in wider Chinese culture, although not necessarily chauvinistically.